The natural gas-fired combined-cycle facility is the first power plant purposely sited in the heart of the Marcellus Shale to take advantage of low natural gas prices and transportation costs.

Designed to generate electricity required to power up to one million homes, the plant is expected to contribute up to $5.97bn to Northern Tier economy.

Gemma-Lane Liberty Partners served as the project engineering, procurement and construction contractor while Siemens Energy provided the power island package including the natural gas turbines, steam turbine and waste heat recovery boilers.

Panda Power Funds CEO Todd Carter said: “Designed to harness gas from the Marcellus Shale, this state of the art power plant represents the next chapter in Pennsylvania’s energy renaissance.”

Featuring advanced emissions-control technology, the facility will be powered by Siemens H-class gas turbines, making the facility one of the most fuel-efficient natural gas power plants in the US.

Panda Power Funds has also developed a sister generating facility, the 829MW Patriot combined-cycle power plant outside of Williamsport which is scheduled to be dedicated in November.

For the both power plants, Siemens has delivered two SGT6-8000H gas turbines, two SST6-5000 steam turbines, two hydrogen-cooled SGen6-2000H generators, and two heat recovery steam generators, along with the control system SPPA-T3000.


Image: The Panda Liberty generating station in Pennsylvania. Photo: courtesy of Business Wire/Gemma Power Systems, LLC.