The third gas-fired plant EdgeConneX wants to build for its data center campus in New Albany, Ohio, was due for a public hearing of the Ohio Power Siting Board on the evening of 22 October. The project, PowerConneX New Albany 3, would be the primary power source for EdgeConneX data centers on Clover Valley Road in Jersey Township, Licking County.
What The Application Lists
According to Construction Review Online, the permit documents name 30 natural gas engines, 12 emergency diesel generators and four black start engines. The capacity is given as 430 MW in that report; the environmental group Save Ohio Parks, which opposes the plant, puts it at 450 MW under case number 26-0361-EL-BGN. The data centers it would serve are part of a planned 1.2 million square feet of buildings.
This is the third step on the same site. Save Ohio Parks says the first plant, of 120 MW, went through the board's accelerated process and the second, of 216 MW, through the standard one. EdgeConneX's own project page describes a first energy center of up to 140 MW that received its certificate in July 2025, started construction that September, and expects its first engine set in commercial operation by September 2026, with all engines running as early as February 2027.
The Air Permit Numbers Opponents Quote
Save Ohio Parks cites the air permit application: about 2.03 million tons a year of greenhouse gases, 161.3 tons of nitrogen oxides, 218.8 tons of carbon monoxide, 214.2 tons of ammonia and 63.8 tons of hazardous air pollutants, 23.7 tons of it formaldehyde. Construction Review Online reports the opponents' concerns for more than 13,000 children living within five miles, for local farmers and for electricity bills. EdgeConneX says its emissions will stay within legal limits.
New Albany is turning into a cluster of such plants. The same group lists a 500 MW plant for Meta's Prometheus data center, with 27 simple-cycle turbines and four reciprocating engines, whose hearing was on 6 October, next to three plants of 200 to 250 MW already approved for that campus.
Engines As The Main Supply
Thirty engines with diesel sets for emergencies and separate black start units is the layout of a plant meant to run without the grid behind it, not of a standby installation. On a site like this the engines have to carry the data halls on the hottest afternoon of the year with some engines down for maintenance, and the plant's own auxiliaries, from cooling fans to pumps, count against what is left for the IT load. Several such plants side by side in one business park also raise the question of whose exhaust and warm air reaches whose intake. More on power generation with engines.
Sources: Construction Review Online, Save Ohio Parks, EdgeConneX
