Staff report

RACINE - Columbus Southern Power Co. and Ohio Power Co. will hold a public informational meeting next week to outline plans for a new power plant in Lebanon Township.

The meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 24 at Southern Elementary School, is part of the formal siting process established by the Ohio Power Siting Board and will allow residents to obtain information concerning the need for the project, the project schedule, the plant's design and other information about the project.

AEP has proposed a 600-megawatt facility to satisfy the growing energy needs of the 1.4 million customers served by AEP's Ohio subsidiaries.

The plant will use Integratd Gasification Combined Cycle clean-coal technology, the first commercial-scale use of the technology for power generation and the largest IGCC plant to date.

The power plant will be a baseload facility designed for continuous operation under normal conditions. The estimated cost is $1.2 billion.

In March, AEP Ohio filed an application with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio seeking authority to recover costs related to building and operating the new clean-coal techology power plant.