Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) Wednesday unveiled plans to build a 600 MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle power plant in Charles County, MD, less than 20 miles south of Washington, DC — the cleanest generation facilities ever built in the region, the company said.

The facility, dubbed CPV St. Charles, will generate enough electricity to power 600,000 homes and use state-of-the-art technology to produce electricity efficiently and cleanly, the Silver Spring, MD-based company said.

“CPV St. Charles will be our flagship facility and will employ the most advanced and environmentally conscious power generation technologies available today,” said CPV CEO Doug Egan.

According to the company, CPV St. Charles will be one of the cleanest natural gas-burning facilities ever built in Maryland and the Washington, DC area, and will help reduce the dependency on older coal-burning power plants, which currently supply a majority of the region’s power. The plant’s innovative design will prevent it from being a strain on local water resources by employing a cooling system requiring only minimal groundwater, the company said.

CPV plans to build and operate the new facility through its subsidiary, CPV Maryland, LLC, on a 77-acre site in an industrial zone adjacent to an existing asphalt plant, the Charles County landfill and an existing power line, eliminating the need to construct new transmission towers or power lines. The site was set aside for a power plant and was fully permitted by another power company in the past, CPV said.

CPV recently entered into a purchase agreement for the site with the current owner, American Community Properties Trust. CPV also recently obtained priority rights to tie the plant directly into the region’s power grid, giving CPV St. Charles a time and cost advantage over other proposed new power plants in the metropolitan Washington area.

Regulatory reviews are due to begin this fall, with construction with construction expected to begin in early 2009 and finish in 2011.

Recent studies by PJM indicate that rolling blackouts could hit the Southern Maryland and Washington, DC, areas by 2011 without the construction of new power generation facilities, CPV said.

When completed, CPV St. Charles will be one of the largest taxpayers in Charles County. Construction of the facility will create approximately 350-400 jobs at peak and will create 30 permanent jobs when operational.

Through its Virginia subsidiary, CPV Warren LLC, CPV is also developing a natural gas-fired power plant in Front Royal, VA. That plant, which is in the final stages of the permitting process, will be the cleanest fossil fuel plant ever permitted in Virginia and one of the cleanest in the United States, CPV said.

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