BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — The Ohio Power Siting Board approved construction of a 350-megawatt natural gas power plant in Wood County on February 3 — with no public hearing — and most people who live nearby are only finding out now.
The Apollo Power Generation Facility is being built by Will-Power OH, LLC, a subsidiary of The Williams Companies, near the intersection of Mercer Road and Middleton Pike in Middleton Township. The plant will operate entirely off the public electric grid — behind-the-meter — generating power exclusively for one customer: Liames, LLC, a shell company currently constructing a data center campus directly adjacent to the Apollo site.
Local officials and regional economic development partners have publicly identified the Liames data center as a Meta project.
The facility will include approximately 120 megawatts of additional battery energy storage capacity.
Three Months From Filing to Shovels in the Ground
The Apollo facility was filed with the OPSB on November 5, 2025, under an accelerated Letter of Notification process — a fast-track review available for power plants serving a single customer on industrial property. The OPSB issued its staff report recommending approval on January 27, 2026. Final approval came on February 3. Construction began days later.
From first filing to construction: roughly 90 days. No public hearing was held at any point in that process.
What’s Still Unknown
The plant will be fed by two 16-inch natural gas pipelines. Those pipelines are not part of the current OPSB approval and will require separate filings — filings that have not yet been made and whose routes remain unknown to residents.
The full cumulative air pollution picture — combining Apollo’s projected 2.4 million-plus tons of annual CO2 emissions with the diesel generators operating at the adjacent Liames data center, permitted separately — has not been publicly calculated or disclosed.
Two residences sit within 1,000 feet of the generating equipment.
Sunday’s Hearing
On Sunday night, approximately 100 residents attended an Ohio EPA public hearing in Bowling Green on Apollo’s draft air permit — the first real opportunity the public has had to formally respond to a project already well under construction.
The two speakers who testified in favor had direct industry ties. Every other speaker opposed the project. Petitions calling for a statewide ban on data centers exceeding 25 megawatts were circulated before and after testimony.
Public comments on the draft air permit remain open through Tuesday, April 15, 2026, at ohioepa.commentinput.com or by mail to Clint Reed, Ohio EPA DAPC, 347 N. Dunbridge Rd., Bowling Green, OH 43402 — referencing Will-Power, Apollo.
The full OPSB approval and project maps are available at OPSB.ohio.gov under case number 25-973-EL-BGN.