Blackstone Energy Transition Partners, the energy-focused private equity business of global investor Blackstone Inc., said on Monday that it has inked a deal to acquire a natural gas power plant in western Pennsylvania for nearly $1 billion.
“In addition to the historic $25-billion investment they announced at our Energy and Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh this summer, I am thrilled to see Blackstone deepening its commitment to Pennsylvania’s energy infrastructure,” said U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA).
Paris, France-based Ardian, a global private investment firm, has agreed to sell Hill Top Energy Center, a 620-megawatt (MW) combined cycle gas turbine plant located in Greene County, Pa., to Blackstone Energy Transition Partners.
The transaction follows Blackstone’s July announcement that it would invest more than $25 billion to support the build out of Pennsylvania’s digital and energy infrastructure supporting the AI revolution and to help catalyze an additional $60-billion investment into the commonwealth.
“The electricity infrastructure required to power the AI revolution requires a tremendous amount of capital,” said Bilal Khan, a senior managing director, and Mark Zhu, a managing director, at Blackstone Energy Transition Partners, in a Sept. 15 joint statement. “We are proud to make our latest investment in this sector — which is among our highest conviction investment themes — in western Pennsylvania.”
Hill Top is one of the newest and most efficient combined cycle gas turbine plants in the country, according to Blackstone.
Completed in 2021, Hill Top will continue to help support the power needs related to data center development and other use cases in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) electric market.
“Hill Top is among the best-in-class and a highly efficient modern power generation facility that is exceptionally well-positioned to help Pennsylvania and the region serve as a key center of AI innovation,” Khan and Zhu said.
Blackstone, the largest data center provider in the world with major investments in both Pennsylvania and globally, also recently made an investment in Potomac Energy Center, a 774-MW natural gas power plant in Loudoun County, Va.
The company also has been in late-stage development or construction for roughly 1,600 MW of new-build power generation capacity over the last three and a half years in the United States.