Just months after it secured $899 million in financing, Switzerland’s Advanced Power AG has begun construction on a 700 MW natural gas-fired power plant in the heart of Ohio’s Utica Shale (see Daily GPI, April 8).

Located on 77 acres in Carroll County, the state’s leading oil and natural gas region where there are more than 300 Utica wells producing, Advanced Power officials Tuesday said the plant would use 50% less carbon dioxide and 10% less sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide than a coal-fired facility.

The plant is expected to create 700 construction jobs and 21 permanent jobs after it is operational in 2017. Advanced first announced plans for the facility in 2013 (see Daily GPI, July 12, 2013)

The facility is one of more than a dozen natural gas-fired power plants planned or being constructed in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Advanced Power is currently developing similar projects in Massachusetts, New York, Belgium and the Netherlands. It is also considering constructing a second plant in Ohio.

The Carroll County facility would use Utica and Marcellus shale gas and is close to Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline. It’s designed to provide enough electricity for 750,000 homes. The plant would sell energy capacity and ancillary services to PJM Interconnection, which coordinates electric transmission in 13 states.

EthosEnergy, a joint venture of engineering consulting firm Wood Group and Siemens, would operate the facility.