Renovo Energy Center Project: so it begins…

RENOVO, PA – A Bellefonte-based environmental company this week began the initial steps towards an $800 million natural gas-to-electricity generating station at Renovo’s old rail yard location.

Letterle & Associates is doing soil investigation work at the site on the north side of Renovo. Renovo Energy Center project director Rick Franzese said the company is carrying out test pitting field work; he described the site work as digging up to 36 test pits total, with an excavator being used to obtain samples from the pits up to 20 feet deep.

Franzese told therecord-online on Tuesday, “So far everything is going as expected, so that’s good news for us.” Franzese, who works out of Reston, VA, is in Renovo early this week for the field work there.

The Letterle company work is the first step in moving forward with the Renovo Energy Center project since the state Department of Environmental Protection on Thursday of last week gave its approval to the project’s updated permit request.

Once construction begins, developers have said, as many as 700 workers could be involved in that process expected to take an estimated 32 months to complete. Ultimately some 25 to 30 permanent jobs are to result.

When the estimated $800 million project is completed, the power generated there will flow to the PJM grid.