"All other major contracts are on track to be signed shortly after we receive a commission order," said Brian Tierney, FirstEnergy chairman, president and CEO, during an earnings conference call. "Maidsville is an important project on its own, but we see it as the first of a broader set of opportunities in West Virginia." The company's overall data center pipeline in West Virginia alone jumped to 6 GW from 4.3 GW three months ago.
FirstEnergy is also exploring "bridge" generation that could be built quickly to serve data centers while transmission infrastructure and larger plants remain under development. Tierney noted that customers seeking 1-GW campuses are looking to start with buildings of about 100 MW in the near term, with options including reciprocating engines, fuel cells and batteries that could later be redeployed to other large-load projects. The first wave of data centers is expected online around 2030, but Tierney said hyperscalers and legitimate developers "are looking well beyond that, and they're doing so across our service territory."
The data center demand is expected to drive up FirstEnergy's transmission investments by at least 25%, or $4.75 billion, on top of its current $19 billion transmission plan, with roughly $250 million in transmission upgrades required per gigawatt of data center load. On the financial front, FirstEnergy reported third-quarter net income of $557 million on $4.5 billion in revenue, up from $441 million and $4.1 billion a year earlier, partly driven by income tax benefits and higher customer demand. Weather-adjusted load rose 1.2% to 40.1 million MWh in the quarter, while demand over the trailing 12 months increased 1% to 148.6 million MWh. The utilities earned a combined 9.5% return on equity with a $29.8 billion rate base over the last 12 months, serving about 6 million customers across Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York.