September 4, 2026 - The top man at Appalachian Power says his company needs all of the generating capacity it can muster and they may still need more in the years to come.

Brian Abraham, new President and CEO of the company, spoke to those on hand for the West Virginia Business Summit at the Greenbrier Thursday about a wave of power demand coming at his company quickly. NUCOR Steel will soon be one of the company’s newest and largest customers, but their power demands pale in comparison to what data centers will need.

“NUCOR at its peak during the day when it’s smelting is going to use 450 megawatts. The customers we have coming now are talking about gigawatts and that is going to be the game changer that brings West Virginia into the future and gets power so it is affordable,” said Abraham.

Abraham denied the commonly held concern data centers would cause the cost of power to rise. He said, on the contrary, mega users will use a lot more power and require a lot more generation. However, they’ll also have to cover the cost of making it and will remove the burden from the rest of the power customers in the region. Abraham said in the 1960’s and 70’s large coal mines and the high number of giant chemical plants in the Kanawha Valley used most of the electricity. Their large bills offset the rates for residential customers.

“But what’s happened? They’re gone, but we still have to generate that power. So the rest of us are left to eat those rates and they continue to go up and up. I’ve got to turn that power plant on for 10 people the same as I have to turn it on for 10,000,” said Abraham.

Abraham, who is a native of Logan County and grew up around the coal industry, said the feud between coal and gas fired power is a moot point.

“My message to both was, we need you now, we need 100 percent of everything you’ve got. The reason is, West Virginia is on the cusp of an energy demand the likes of which we have never seen,” he explained.

Appalachian Power recently announced the purchase of Long View Power Plant in Morgantown, a coal fired facility. The purchase comes with permits to construct a gas fired plant nearby. Those are the most recent of several moves to increase generating capacity. Abraham said it’s still not enough. He explained there are four large load customers who are very close to signing deals with APCo.

“Those four will eat all of the power from those generating expansion projects I just mentioned and I have twice that many waiting right behind them,” he said.

“They’re not going to raise their rates because we have offered and will be developing a new large load tariff. Not only do you not pay for their generation, you don’t pay for their transmission, they’re going to carry the load on every bit of that and then some. We’re hoping the rates are going to go down as we bring these large load customers in,” he said.

Abraham said West Virginia can benefit greatly from data centers. He said concerns about water are being addressed through closed loop cooling systems. The facilities are paying for their own power generation and in many ways lowering the costs of electricity for others. But he admitted the developers needed to do a much better job of endearing themselves to the state’s residents. Polls have shown, West Virginians don’t want data centers. Abraham believes that’s because there have been too many misconceptions about their impact and it’s up to the developers themselves to become part of the community, be transparent, and set the record straight with the truth about their plans and address community concerns.

“If they do the things we’ve asked them to do like come here and give us jobs and a tax base the likes of which we’ve never seen, then we need to embrace that and we need to step up and speak out. The irony is the people who are complaining about them are using the technology to get their message out. They’re on these cell phones, they’re doing their Tik-tok dances and their Facebook post and every bit of that is going through a data center,” he said.