Amazon Eyes Homer City Energy Campus for a Data Center
Amazon has confirmed it is in talks with Homer City Redevelopment about a data center campus beside the 4.5-gigawatt gas plant rising in Indiana County.
Amazon is considering a site next to the Homer City Energy Campus in Indiana County for a data center campus, the company has confirmed.
The talks were first reported by TribLive, which obtained emails from the state government through Right to Know requests. Amazon Web Services then confirmed it is in discussions with Homer City Redevelopment, the company building the plant, while stressing that no deal has been reached.
“We are in discussions with Homer City Redevelopment,” an Amazon spokesman said, adding that the company is weighing multiple sites across Pennsylvania as part of a pledged $20 billion investment in the state.
The Homer City Energy Campus is rising on the 3,200-acre site of the former Homer City coal-fired power plant in Center and Blacklick townships, about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh. The old station, once the largest coal burner in Pennsylvania, was demolished, and its owners are replacing it with a 4.5-gigawatt natural gas-fired plant. Homer City Redevelopment has said the campus will be the country’s largest gas-powered plant, with room to host large data center customers while also feeding power to thousands of nearby homes.
The plans remain early. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said it has not received permit applications for any data center at the site, nor held pre-application meetings with Amazon or any other company. Homer City Redevelopment declined to comment on the discussions.
The project is part of a broader rush by technology companies to build data centers in Pennsylvania, drawn by access to power. Amazon has committed to at least $20 billion in data center investment across the state, including campuses already planned in the eastern and central parts of the commonwealth.
The Homer City plant and its data center ambitions have also drawn opposition. Earlier this year, residents aired concerns at a community gathering about the environmental impact of a large gas-fired plant and the data centers it would power.
For now, Amazon says only that it is looking. What it decides could reshape a corner of Indiana County that was, until recently, defined by coal.