The Ground Rules

New Albany, Ohio · gas power for data centers

Downwind New Albany

Seven gas-burning power plants are operating, under construction, or proposed inside the New Albany International Business Park, all of them built to run data centers. This page shows how their exhaust spreads under real weather, and lets you tap your own neighborhood to see what reaches it and how often.

Emission figures from Ohio EPA permit applications Dispersion is a simplified screening model, not a regulatory study
Tap or click the map to place your home. Drag to move, scroll or pinch to zoom.
Added NO₂, share of the EPA 1-hour limit
1%3%10%25%50%100%+
Operating plant Approved / under construction Proposed, awaiting decision
2 mi
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors

At the New Albany schools campus

—

In this scenario, right now
—µg/m³
added to whatever is already in the air
0EPA limit
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Averaged over a year
—µg/m³
long-term average added at this spot, weighted by how often each wind blows
0EPA annual limit
—
How often you are downwind
—of hours
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Highlighted petals are wind directions that carry air from a selected plant to this spot.

What changes the picture

The same plant can be harmless or a nuisance depending on the air it exhausts into. Three things matter most: how fast the wind is moving, how well the atmosphere mixes, and how far you are from the stacks.

Wind speed, at your spot

Added concentration as a share of the EPA short-term limit, with wind aimed straight from the nearest selected plant at your spot. Faster wind dilutes the exhaust; it also keeps hot gas from rising.

Sunny afternoonTypical dayEvening / overcast nightCalm, clear night

Distance from the stacks

Straight downwind of one plant under the current wind and weather. Exhaust usually peaks a mile or two away, not at the fence line, because it rises first.

NEO · 500 MW turbines (proposed)PowerConneX 3 · 450 MW engines (proposed)

Calm, clear nights are the worst

After sunset the ground cools and the air stops mixing. A plume that would spread a thousand feet high on a sunny afternoon stays in a thin layer and drifts for miles nearly intact. Try "Calm, clear night" with a 4 mph wind.

Direction decides who gets it

Columbus winds come from the south and west most of the year, which pushes most exhaust toward Johnstown, Alexandria, and northern Licking County. New Albany's schools and village center are downwind only when the wind swings around to the east or northeast, roughly one hour in eight.

Seven plants add up

Any one plant may stay within the limit on its own. Ohio EPA reviews each application on top of what is already permitted, but the cumulative total, about 1,900 megawatts of combustion inside a few square miles, is what people breathe.

The seven plants

Capacity and status from Ohio Power Siting Board filings and local reporting as of November 5, 2026. Annual emissions in bold come from the two air-permit applications that have been made public. The rest are estimates scaled by capacity from the most similar application, shown in italics.

PlantServesEquipment and locationMWNOx t/yrPM2.5 t/yrCO t/yrCO₂e t/yr

PowerConneX 1 is listed at 120 MW in city filings, 125 MW in county reporting, and up to 140 MW in its OPSB certificate; 120 is used here. Greenhouse gas totals are the applicants' own carbon-dioxide-equivalent figures where published.

How this works, and what it leaves out

The model

  • Emissions. Each plant's permitted tons per year are converted to a steady release rate and scaled by the output slider. Everything is treated as coming from the center of each site, spread over a few hundred feet to stand in for dozens of individual stacks.
  • Plume rise. Briggs equations estimate how far hot exhaust climbs before leveling off, using typical exhaust heat for small gas turbines and reciprocating engines. The "Reduced" default halves that rise to reflect 30-foot stacks next to taller data halls.
  • Dispersion. A Gaussian plume with Briggs rural spreading curves for the six Pasquill stability classes. The four weather buttons map to classes B, D, E and F. Terrain is treated as flat, which is a fair description of this part of Licking County.
  • The yearly average at your spot combines the long-term Columbus airport wind rose (hourly observations since 1945, 16 directions, mean speed per direction) with a typical mix of day and night stability. Calm hours (about 11% of the year) are left out.
  • Limits. Comparisons use the federal National Ambient Air Quality Standards: NO₂ 100 ppb for one hour and 53 ppb annual; PM2.5 35 µg/m³ for 24 hours and 9 µg/m³ annual; CO 9 ppm for eight hours.

What it leaves out

  • Background air. Everything here is added pollution. Central Ohio's existing fine-particle level already sits near the 9 µg/m³ annual limit, so small additions matter more than they look.
  • Ozone and secondary particles. Nitrogen oxides and volatile organics react in sunlight to form ozone and extra particles miles downwind. That chemistry is not modeled and is the main regional health concern from these plants.
  • Startups, upsets, and diesel backup. Engines emit far more during cold starts; PowerConneX 3 also lists four diesel black-start generators, and the other plants have diesel backup, none of which is included here. Ohio EPA has put the PowerConneX 3 permit on hold to correct its annual emission calculations, so its figures may change.
  • Exact stack details. The public filings do not list every stack height, flow and temperature. Ohio EPA's own AERMOD modeling for each permit uses them and should be treated as the authoritative result; this page exists to make the shape of the problem visible, not to replace that review.
  • Health. No concentration here is a statement of individual risk. The EPA limits are population-level standards with built-in margins, and sensitive people react below them.
Site locations are approximate. They were placed from the addresses and road descriptions in state filings, generally within a quarter mile; PowerConneX 2 is the least certain. The exhaust pattern at a mile or more away does not change much with that uncertainty.

Sources

  • Ohio Power Siting Board cases 26-0361-EL-BGN (PowerConneX New Albany 3) and 26-0627-EL-BGN (NEO Power Generation Facility), including the staff reports of Oct. 16 and Oct. 1, 2026 and the settlements of Nov. 2 and Oct. 19, 2026; 25-0090-EL-BLN (PowerConneX 1), 25-0302-EL-BGN (PowerConneX 2), 25-0185-EL-BLN and 25-0188-EL-BGN (Socrates South and North, including Will-Power's in-service notices of July 22 and Nov. 3, 2026), and 26-0169-EL-BLN (Socrates the Younger). Full list with links on the plants page.
  • Ohio EPA draft permit P0139969 (Socrates the Younger) and final permit P0137967 (PowerConneX 1). Site positions checked against OpenStreetMap road geometry and the addresses in these filings.
  • The Reporting Project (Licking County), "Public hearing on another gas-fired power plant for a data center set for Oct. 22 in New Albany" and hearing coverage of Oct. 6, 2026, including the PowerConneX 3 emissions table and the list of seven plants.
  • Save Ohio Parks, Ohio Power Siting Board testimony of Oct. 6, 2026, quoting the NEO and PowerConneX 3 air-permit applications.
  • City of New Albany, "Natural Gas Power" information page; Williams Companies, Socrates North and South fact sheets; Ohio Capital Journal, Oct. 22, 2026; NBC4 and Spectrum News hearing coverage.
  • Iowa Environmental Mesonet, wind rose for John Glenn Columbus International Airport (CMH), April 1945 to October 2026.
  • Basemap: OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License. Dispersion method: Briggs plume rise and rural dispersion coefficients as summarized in EPA's Workbook of Atmospheric Dispersion Estimates (Turner).