PPL upgrade put on hold as recession bites

A US power producer has put plans on ice to double production at a century-old hydroelectric plant on Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River. In an interview with Recharge , the top executive of PPL (formerly known as Pennsylvania Power and Light) says a plan to install new hydroelectric turbine generators at Holtwood, Lancaster County, with the combined capacity to churn out an extra 125 megawatts, was suspended because of the souring economy and falling energy prices. "We have put the project on the back-burner for now," says James Miller, PPL's chairman and chief executive. "Construction costs and energy processes... didn't justify the project."