Clean Energy Future Closes on $1.2B in Financing for 2nd Plant

LORDSTOWN, Ohio – Clean Energy Future closed on financing today for the long-delayed Trumbull Energy Center, clearing the way for construction to begin soon.

Officials with the Boston-based company informed Mayor Arno Hill that the financing for the $1.2 billion natural gas fired electricity plant was approved, he reported. The plant would be the company’s second in the village. Like the company’s first power plant, it would be built at the Lordstown Industrial Park off state Route 45.

Construction would take approximately three years and create about 1,000 construction jobs, according to Hill.

The Ohio Power Siting board already has approved the site plan, but it still has to come before the village planning commission.

“We have a couple of things to wrap up. That will probably happen within the next month to six weeks,” Hill said. “Depending on how soon they submit everything, they may start doing a little bit of site work, maybe some tree clearing and stuff like that. But I believe the contractors are going to move in the next two weeks.”

A 100% tax abatement was approved for the project. In lieu of those taxes, Clean Energy Future will make an $800,000 initial payment to Lordstown village schools and annual payments to the school system during the 15 years of the abatement, and to the village, which also will share income taxes with the school system.

The project, announced in 2019, has taken an often uncertain path, at one point being scuttled because of lack of financing.

Political squabbling over who would supply water to the site also threatened the project.

Pictured: Rendering of the project.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.