Silver Spring, MD – Energy provider Competitive Power Ventures of Maryland (CPV) is partnering with Japan’s Marubeni and Toyota Tsusho on a new $775 million “energy center” in Waldorf, Maryland, about 25 miles southeast of Washington, D.C.

A combined-cycle natural gas-fired electric power generating facility, the plant will generate 725-megawatt (MW) of electricity and sell its capacity, energy and ancillary services to power as many as 700,000 homes.

The project is Marubeni’s first in the region overseen by PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia – an area that includes more than 51 million people.

The new project “is a valuable addition to our portfolio. We remain committed to further expanding our footprint and capabilities in the North American electric power sector,” said Toshi Fukumura, President and CEO of New York-based Marubeni Power International Inc.

No stranger to the North American energy sector, in 2010, Toyota Tsusho acquired a 45 percent interest in the Oyster Creek natural gas fired cogeneration plant in Freeport, Texas. Since then, has increased its stakeholdings in two major natural gas-generated power plants in Canada.

Earlier this year, CPV received the ‘green light’ from the Maryland Public Service Commission to go-ahead with the construction of a long-planned, 661-megawatt natural gas plant, also to be sited in Waldorf.

The $500 million facility is expected to be online by June 2015. Once that plant is online, more than 9 percent of the state’s energy generation will come from natural gas facilities, according to the governor’s statement.

12/17/2014