Work Expected to Begin Next Spring on $300 Million Hydrogen Gas Plant in West Virginia
October 22, 2024 - Construction is expected to begin next spring on a multi-million dollar plant that will utilize West Virginia-mined coal to create a hydrogen-based gas for clean electricity.
The $300 million plant planned near Exit 9 in Princeton is one of several plants proposed for Mercer County and the surrounding communities by TNT Hydrogen. Each plant, according to company officials, will employ upwards of 100 to 125 people in addition to the new coal mining jobs that will be needed to supply coal to those facilities.
Tim Hawks, managing partner of TNT Biofuels of West Virginia and president of Hernandez Consulting & Construction in New Orleans, provided the Daily Telegraph Monday with an update on the project. Hawks said the clean energy developed from the hydrogen gas and metallurgical coal at the Princeton plant will be used by the 13 state PJM grid.
“We are processing the coal, separating the hydrogen,” Hawks said. “The hydrogen generation system is right there. PJM will accept the electricity. The electricity is going directly to the PJM.”
Hawks said the company is working with investors, including financial bankers and equity firms, and is close to closing on the financial plan for the large-scale project.
“This has been a two-year behind the scenes effort to get to where we are today,” Hawks said. “We are planning on breaking ground on Exit 9 in Princeton in March or April of next year. We are ready to start detailed engineering”
Hawks said the company also is looking at Exit 1 in Bluefield for a second plant. The goal is to build as many as 25 plants which could employ approximately 3,000 people. The Princeton facility would be the first plant and additional plants would be constructed over the next 10 years.
“That doesn’t include what the mines will hire,” Hawks said. “These are high-paying jobs. We start at $30 an hour.”
Hawks said metallurgical coal, which is used in the steel-making process, creates hydrogen gas when it is heated and carbon black, which is used for making tires in the United States.
Hawks was joined by several area officials during Monday’s stop at the Daily Telegraph, including Senator Chandler Swope, R-Mercer, Mercer County Assessor Lyle Cottle and Keith Olson, vice president of development for Bluefield State University. Swope is working with state officials to ensure that the project complies with all state regulations and Olsen is working with the company to help ensure that students, including those in the engineering technology fields, are available and ready to fill the hundreds of jobs the company will be creating over the next couple of years.
“We would start operations somewhere around the first or second quarter of 2026,” Hawks said. “We need to break ground next spring because I want to be under roof this time next year before the weather turns bad because I want to bring equipment into the building.”
The company will need about a thousand tons of coal a day for the hydrogen gas that will be used to create the clean energy for the PJM grid.
As a result, additional coal mining operators and coal miners will be needed. Much of the coal currently being mined right now across southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia is being imported to overseas markets.
The project will help local coal mining operators, Swope said.
“Much of the coal right now is being imported overseas to China,” Swope said. “The regular coal operators are still struggling.”
Hawks said each of the hydrogen plants the company plans to build across the region will cost approximately $300 million to construct.
Hawks said the turbines, which he said resemble a small jet engine, will generate the electricity on site. There are no carbon emissions.
“So we will be powering major cities with clean energy made from coal and hydrogen,” Hawks said.
The PJM grid serves 13 states, including West Virginia and Virginia.
The company estimates that 1,000 to 1,500 new coal mining jobs will be needed to meet the demand for the plants. Another 500 to 700 workers will be needed to haul the coal.
“We are making deals with local mines,” Hawks said. “We are looking for someone who has 20 to 30 years worth of coal, which some of them do. There is a lot of jobs we will create indirectly like in McDowell County. Because McDowell has some of the largest deposits of coal.”
The company also hopes to have a national monitoring station set up in the Princeton area that will also employ another 100 people.