Wallingford, Conn. -- PPL Wallingford Energy, LLC, today (8/17) announced that construction is underway on the company's 250 megawatt peaking power facility located in Wallingford, Conn. PPL recently gave the go-ahead for the engineering and construction of the facility to a joint venture of Barton Malow of Detroit and PB Power of Boston.

Project managers expect the plant to be completed by the summer of 2001. The plant will use natural gas-fired turbine technology derived from aircraft engines to produce power. The facility is positioned to supply power to the New England grid during times of peak demand. The cutting-edge turbines produce extremely low emissions.

PPL Wallingford is a subsidiary of PPL Global, LLC. According to PPL Global representative Don Fields, The Town of Wallingford stands to benefit from the additional electric service reliability the plant will provide and the funding the company will pay the town in lease fees and property taxes.

"PPL Global is looking forward to a long-term partnership with the Town of Wallingford," Fields said. "The Town of Wallingford has been very helpful during this process especially the Department of Public Utilities who has been integral in the success of this project."

The plant is being built on the site of the current Alfred Pierce generating station owned by the Town of Wallingford. The older facility has been taken out of service and will be partially demolished during the construction.

PPL Global is PPL Corporation's domestic and international development company. PPL Corp. announced last year that its corporate strategy is to own or control about 20,000 megawatts of generating capacity in key U.S. markets. Today, the company has about 10,000 megawatts of capacity under its control in Pennsylvania, Montana and Maine. The company is now developing an additional 2,700 megawatts in, New York, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Connecticut.