NTE Energy has announced plans to build a large natural gas-fired power plant in Anderson County, SC, and expand its asset base in a region where the company is currently developing two other similar facilities.

The 1,000 MW Anderson County Energy Center would cost more than $1 billion to develop, NTE said, and complement the company’s portfolio in the Carolinas, where it’s also building the 500 MW Reidsville Energy Center and the 475 MW Kings Mountain Energy Center. Both of those facilities have been designed to burn natural gas.

“The addition of the Anderson County facility brings NTE’s generation portfolio to more than 2,000 MW representing some of the newest, cleanest and most efficient power plants in the country,” said Senior Vice President Mike Green, who oversees development for the Florida-based wholesale power generator in the Carolinas.

Reidsville was announced by NTE about two years ago as part of a broader $2 billion investment proposal along with plans for the 550 MW Killingly Energy Center in Connecticut and the 1,000 MW Pickaway Energy Center in Ohio, which would both utilize natural gas. The company is also developing another 475 MW gas-fired facility in Middletown, OH. All of the plants currently under development are expected to come online over the next three years or so.

NTE said it has executed long-term power purchase agreements with more than ten communities and is in the final stages of negotiations with several others in the Carolinas. The company said development and permitting of the Anderson facility is to take place over the next two years, with an in-service date planned for sometime in 2024. The company did not say how the new plant would be supplied.

Natural gas continues to account for a larger share of power generation in the South, where, according to the Energy Information Administration, most new electricity capacity has come from gas and wind. Between 2006 and 2017, the south added 47 GW of natural gas capacity and 25.6 GW of wind capacity.

The trend has sparked several greenfield and pipeline expansion projects to serve that part of the country, particularly those originating in the Marcellus and Utica shales. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline, for example, are both being developed to move more Appalachian natural gas to the Southeast.