{"id":256496,"date":"2026-07-31T17:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/256496\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T17:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:21:13","slug":"ppl-corp-blackstone-spend-40-4m-on-possible-luzerne-county-power-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/256496\/","title":{"rendered":"PPL Corp., Blackstone spend $40.4M on possible Luzerne County power plants"},"content":{"rendered":"

PPL Corporation and Blackstone Infrastructure spent more than $40 million to buy 500-plus acres in Jenkins, Plains and Salem townships for possible power plants to fuel data centers, a PPL spokesman said Thursday.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOur joint venture with Blackstone acquired land in Jenkins and Salem townships as we\u2019re evaluating opportunities to meet rising demand for electricity in Pennsylvania,\u201d said Ryan Hill of PPL Corporation, who emphasized they are in the early stages of evaluation. \u201cWe haven\u2019t made any final decisions to proceed with generation projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hill pointed to the scale of data center growth driving demand for electricity, as well as power plants retiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a time right now where demand is rising, and there\u2019s a need for new generation to be built,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are proposing solutions like this to help address that need.\u201d<\/p>\n

PPL and Blackstone spent $27.75 million to acquire 400-plus acres in Jenkins and Plains townships on land between Interstate 81 and Westminster Road, according to a property transaction recorded April 16 and Luzerne County Assessor\u2019s Office data.\n<\/p>\n

The venture also purchased 140-plus acres in Salem Twp. for $12.66 million on land bounded by two power plants, according to another transaction recorded the same day and assessor\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

The Salem Twp. site is between the Moxie Freedom natural gas power plant to its north and the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear power plant to its south.\n<\/p>\n

Talen Energy owns both plants after acquiring the Moxie Freedom facility last year\u00a0<\/a>as part of a $3.5 billion acquisition. Amazon bought Talen Energy\u2019s Cumulus data center adjacent to the nuclear power plant in March 2024 for $650 million, with plans for a data center campus of 15 or more buildings at the site.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

PPL and Blackstone acquired the properties under Phoenix PA Land Holdings LLC.\n<\/p>\n

Phoenix PA Land Holdings organized March 7, 2025, using PPL Corporation\u2019s address at 645 Hamilton St., Allentown, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.\n<\/p>\n

Executives from PPL Corporation, the parent company of local electricity provider PPL Electric Utilities, comprise Phoenix PA Land Holdings\u2019 officers and governors; PPL Executive Vice President and CFO Joseph B. Bergstein Jr. is listed as the holding company\u2019s president.\n<\/p>\n

Phoenix PA Land Holdings purchased the Jenkins and Plains townships land from BPJI LP, 403 Coal St., Wilkes-Barre. It acquired the Salem Twp. property from James and Michele Benkinney.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

PPL Corporation and Blackstone Infrastructure announced<\/a> the joint venture in July 2025 to build natural gas power plants in Pennsylvania to support data center development. PPL owns 51% of the venture; Blackstone owns 49%.<\/p>\n

Hill emphasized that the venture does not involve PPL Electric Utilities. The $40.4 million came through PPL Corporation and Blackstone, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPPL Electric Utilities customers are not funding these activities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There are no timelines associated with the projects, Hill said. The first step is to contract with a data center or large customer to buy the power, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been pretty clear that we\u2019re not going to proceed with any generation projects without having a large customer,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n

The amount of electricity generated at either site would depend on customer needs, he said.<\/p>\n

The customer does not have to be adjacent to or co-located at either site, Hill said. The power plants would connect to the grid, rather than directly to a data center, he said.<\/p>\n

Work so far has consisted of site evaluations and due diligence, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s a project that would move forward, the joint venture is committed to engaging transparently with the local officials, stakeholders, the community, with a clear focus on delivering reliability, affordability and local benefits,\u201d Hill said. \u201cBut again, early stages, just evaluating land opportunities at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PPL Corporation and Blackstone Infrastructure spent more than $40 million to buy 500-plus acres in Jenkins, Plains and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2116,4486,182,803,139,28,7513,13176,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-256496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-data-centers","tag-jenkins-township","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-plains-township","tag-salem-township","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}