By comparison, the nearby city of Carbondale\u2019s entire landmass is 3.24 square miles, according to U.S. Census data.\n<\/p>\n
\u201c(Invitium) was formed to build new-generation resources in light of the growing demand for power, largely in regards to data centers,\u201d PPL Corp. Senior Vice President\u2013Finance and Treasurer Tadd Henninger said during the meeting.\n<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s meeting introduced the prospect of on-site data centers with the power plants, though Henninger said Invitium would only build the power plants. They are not looking to own, operate or build data centers, he said.<\/p>\n
PPL Corp. is the parent company of PPL Electric Utilities, but Henninger stressed that Invitium Energy is only affiliated with PPL Corp. and not its utility company. PPL Corp. attorney Mallory Sweeney and Blackstone\u2019s managing director in its Infrastructure Group, Bryan Hom, joined Henninger at the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u2018Diligence is underway\u2019<\/p>\n
Henninger characterized the meeting as informational.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have development plans to present to you, but really, the reason why we\u2019re here is we understand that engaging with the community early is extremely important,\u201d he said. \u201cUnderstanding any feedback and answering your questions this evening, or as we move forward, is an important part of the process, and we want to allow those comments and questions to inform us before we\u2019ve already made decisions and are too far down the path.\u201d<\/p>\n
In April and June, using a land holding company, the joint venture entered into memorandums with Dunmore businessman Dominick DeNaples to purchase close to 7,200 acres, or 11.2 square miles, across northern Lackawanna County, spanning Archbald, Carbondale, Carbondale Twp., Fell Twp. and Mayfield, according to tax assessment data for 36 parcels analyzed by The Times-Tribune. The memorandums divide the sites into a west campus billed at nearly 4,860 acres and an east campus with just over 2,200 billed acres.\n<\/p>\n
As of Thursday afternoon, Invitium Energy had not yet approached Archbald, Carbondale, Carbondale Twp. or Mayfield, according to Archbald Borough Manager Dan Markey, Carbondale Mayor Michele Bannon, Carbondale Twp. Treasurer and Secretary Lawrence Catanzaro and Mayfield Mayor Al Chelik.\n<\/p>\n
Invitium does not expect to be able to develop all of the land it has under contract, Henninger said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s certainly going to be constraints to the ability to develop that, whether that\u2019s environmental issues, topography issues, cut-fill considerations, all of that would inform us of a conclusion,\u201d he said. \u201cThe other thing, as we think about having that amount of acreage under contract, we\u2019re obviously considering setbacks, buffers, other considerations with, you know, the surrounding community to be a good community citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Responding to a question about whether their land purchase is contingent on approval from Fell Twp., Henninger said there are conditions or contingencies that they need to know it is suitable for development.<\/p>\n
They do not have a timeline, Henninger said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now diligence is underway,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has been for, I\u2019ll call it, several weeks and\/or months on the various parcels of land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Invitium is in a very similar diligence stage in other municipalities, and they are evaluating a broader development plan, Henninger said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Build generation\u2019<\/p>\n
In April, Invitium filed interconnection requests with grid operator PJM for two natural gas power plants in Lackawanna County: a 1,500-megawatt plant \u2014 about the same output as the Lackawanna Energy Center in Jessup \u2014 and a 750-megawatt plant. Invitium filed similar requests for two Luzerne County power plants after acquiring land<\/a> in Jenkins, Plains and Salem townships.\n<\/p>\n According to PJM data, the 1,500-megawatt plant has a requested in-service date of Jan. 1, 2033, and the 750-megawatt plant\u2019s requested in-service date is Jan. 1, 2034.\n<\/p>\n Elsewhere in Lackawanna County, limited liability companies tied to Kriger Construction Inc. and its executive leadership propose another gigawatt of natural gas power plants, with a 400-megawatt power plant<\/a> on Eynon Jermyn Road in Archbald and 600 megawatts of power plants<\/a> across Bell Mountain above Business Route 6 in Dickson City. Those developments operate as Essential Energy and Dickson City Power One, Two and Three.\n<\/p>\n The exact locations of Invitium Energy\u2019s power plants are unclear, which Henninger reiterated Tuesday, but the timing of the PJM requests aligns with Invitium\u2019s west campus memorandum that it filed with the Lackawanna County recorder of deeds in April. The east campus memorandum was recorded in June.\n<\/p>\n The west campus begins in Carbondale Twp. above Business Route 6, lines Carbondale and extends north through Fell Twp. The east campus includes properties spanning from near Aylesworth Park in Archbald north to the Brownell Reservoir in Carbondale Twp., which provides 2 million gallons of drinking water daily to surrounding communities.\n<\/p>\n Invitium is focused on gas-fired power plants because of access to low-cost Marcellus shale natural gas, but they would also consider other types of generation, Henninger said.<\/p>\n Although Invitium is evaluating whether both data centers and power plants are feasible on the land, they could build power plants for other data centers, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe benefit of colocation is you\u2019re matching the generation with the demand that is coming from the data center and offsetting that,\u201d he said. \u201cInvitium Energy is looking to build generation. \u2026 We are not looking to own or operate or build data centers, so that would be a relationship that we\u2019ve engaged other third parties for.\u201d<\/p>\n Addressing water demands, Henninger said they are evaluating air-cooled power plants and closed-loop data centers to mitigate the amount of water usage. Closed-loop cooling systems recirculate water or another coolant rather than evaporating it off.<\/p>\n \u201cDrying up lakes is not something we need to do,\u201d Henninger said.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/STT-L-INVITIUM-1002-1.jpg\")
A Lackawanna County Department of Planning map depicting Invitium Energy\u2019s land under agreement to purchase in northern Lackawanna County, in addition to the sites of other data center campuses throughout the county. (COURTESY OF LACKAWANNA COUNTY COMMISSIONER BILL GAUGHAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A PPL Corp. joint venture could acquire more than a quarter of Fell Twp. in its endeavor to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2117,3099,3100,2116,3101,201,182,3102,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-297929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-archbald","tag-carbondale","tag-carbondale-township","tag-data-centers","tag-fell-township","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-mayfield","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","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\/297929","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=297929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}