COAL PLANT BACKERS ASK FOR APCO TRANSMISSION

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 3, 1992                   TAG: 9201030050
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON                                LENGTH: Medium
COAL PLANT BACKERS ASK FOR APCO TRANSMISSION
Coastal Power Production Co. of Roanoke said Thursday that its $110 million federal grant to build a coal gasification plant and cogeneration facility in Southwest Virginia's coalfields depends on getting Appalachian Power Co.'s interest in relaying the electricity to urban areas.
Horst Meinecke, Coastal's marketing and development director, told the Coal Subcommittee of the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission that the project depends on Apco allowing energy from Southwest Virginia to be transmitted over its lines.
Otherwise, the grant will be lost, Meinecke said. "We cannot do it without them."
Apco spokesman R. Daniel Carson said the company has not ruled out power generation from Southwest Virginia but sees no need for it there. "We're going to need to recapture the capacity we're selling to Virginia Power . . . just to handle our growth," he said.
Del. Ford Quillen, D-Gate City and a member of the coal subcommittee, said a successful generating facility near Coeburn in Wise County could supply power for new industry and help the region become less dependent on the rest of the state.
Quillen asked representatives of Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Richmond-based Dominion Resources Inc., to consider asking Apco to make the transmission line available.
Southwest Virginia is in a deficit situation in the amount of taxes it pays, educational disparities and in many other ways, Quillen said, which could be helped by the tax base that would be created by Coastal's project.
"There's a good governmental reason for you all to direct things down this way," Quillen told a State Corporation Commission speaker.
Apco has proposed building a 765,000-volt line from West Virginia to Cloverdale. Representatives of Common Ground, a citizens group that opposes the line, suggested that it is a way for American Electric Power Co., Apco's parent company, to use cheaper coal from Western states instead of Appalachian coal.
Apco representatives denied that and said there are no plans - as asserted by Common Ground speakers - to close the Glen Lyn power plant in Giles County and replace it with nuclear power after the turn of the century.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB