POMEROY - The Ohio Power Siting Board's approval of the location proposed for a new IGCC power plant in Lebanon Township is a “major step forward” in plans to locate the project here, Meigs County Economic Development Director Perry Varnadoe said.

The OPSB approved AEP-Ohio's proposal at a regular meeting on Monday, based on an application AEP filed over a year ago. The 11-member OPSB reviews applications for the siting of large electric and natural gas facilities in Ohio.

AEP and local officials have considered the OPSB permit process a major step in locating the power plant at Great Bend. AEP corporate spokesman Jeff Rennie said AEP is “very pleased” with the OPSB's decision to approve the Lebanon Township site.

The approval sets forth 36 conditions the company must meet to remediate the environmental and economic impacts presented by the construction and operation of the facility. Those impacts were included in an agreement between AEP and the OPSB approved in March.

The state-of-the-art plant will use new Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle clean coal technology to generate 629 megawatts of electricity. A public hearing on the OPSB application was held in December 2006 at Meigs HIgh School.

“There are other steps that have to be taken, but this is a major, critical step forward on the project,” Varnadoe said.

AEP plans to take a second cost recovery application - this one for construction of the plant - before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio once the costs associated with construction are determined. A preliminary cost estimate was deemed to high.

Rennie said AEP is continuing to work with its with construction and design partners to finalize cost estimates associated with the front-end engineering and design process.

Rennie said AEP hopes to finalize that cost estimate by the end of June.

AEP also has a permit pending with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, and must again go to the OPSB for the siting of the transmission lines to be associated with the plant.

That permit process is “on hold” pending the finalization of the FEED study, Rennie said. All of the permit processes are independent of one another, and the outcome of any one permit application will not likely affect the outcome of any other.