About PowerConneX I and II New
The PowerConneX I and II New Albany Energy Center is located in New Albany, Ohio — a suburb on the northeastern edge of Columbus in Franklin County. The facility has been associated with distributed power generation and industrial energy supply in central Ohio’s commercial and technology corridor.
New Albany grew from rural township to a major commercial and industrial center beginning in the 1990s. The region now hosts data centers, corporate office campuses, industrial energy infrastructure, and mixed commercial and manufacturing complexes.
Energy centers like PowerConneX — typically smaller combustion-turbine and combined-cycle power generation plants — were constructed and expanded during periods when asbestos-containing materials remained in service from prior construction eras, and when renovation and decommissioning work created significant asbestos disturbance risks for workers on site.
Power generation facilities — combustion turbine plants, natural gas peaker plants, and combined heat-and-power facilities — operate under extreme heat and pressure. Systems that required thermal protection included: steam lines and exhaust systems, turbine casings and housings, boilers and heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs), mechanical support systems and structural components, valve insulation and packing, and electrical switchgear and control panels. Asbestos-containing insulation was the industry standard for these applications for decades.
General Equipment at PowerConneX I and II New
The equipment below represents the systems and infrastructure documented or typically present at this facility during the era when asbestos-containing materials were specified in industrial construction. This is general facility-equipment reference — not a legal attribution of any specific product, manufacturer, or exposure event to this facility. Material-category and manufacturer information is addressed in the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk linked under the records table below.
Documented Asbestos Evidence
The records below are verified, state-documented asbestos removals at this facility. Each entry represents a regulated abatement project where the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) was notified under federal NESHAP rules, the work was logged, and the asbestos-containing material was confirmed and removed under regulated conditions. These are not allegations or estimates — they are paper records tying documented asbestos-containing material to this specific site.
Material Categories in Documented Records
The materials documented above (and similar asbestos-containing materials commonly encountered in records of this type) appear in the AsbestosIndex catalog with historical manufacturer and trust-fund information. Click a category to view manufacturers historically associated with that material:
Who May Have Been Exposed at PowerConneX I and II New
At energy generation facilities like the PowerConneX I and II New Albany Energy Center, several trades and occupational groups may have encountered asbestos-containing materials in the ordinary course of their work. Workers represented by Missouri and Illinois union locals — including Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 (St. Louis), Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 562 (St. Louis), and Boilermakers Local 27 (St. Louis) — have historically worked at comparable facilities across the Midwest, including Ohio energy centers, and may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials at multiple job sites over the course of long union careers.
Insulators and Insulation Workers
Insulators applied, maintained, and removed thermal insulation on pipes, turbines, boilers, exhaust systems, and mechanical equipment. No trade at a power generation facility faced greater asbestos exposure risk.
Workers in this trade may have:
- Mixed and applied asbestos-containing insulating cement from manufacturers such as and
- Cut and fitted pre-formed pipe insulation allegedly containing chrysotile or amosite asbestos under brand names such as calcium silicate pipe insulation and Thermobestos
- Removed degraded asbestos-containing insulation from equipment during maintenance outages
- Worked in enclosed spaces where airborne
Critical Filing Deadline & Next Steps
Ohio law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 2 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (ORC § 2305.10). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 2 years from the date of death (ORC § 2125.02). The two deadlines run on separate tracks — preserving one does not extend the other.
The personal-injury clock runs from diagnosis, not from exposure. Mesothelioma latency is typically 20 to 50 years, so workers exposed in the 1950s–1980s are being diagnosed today.
Practical first steps
- Document what you remember. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, coworker names, and dates of employment. The WorkChain widget on this page can save a copy you can email yourself.
- Preserve medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests are central to both civil claims and trust-fund filings.
- Identify household members. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children of plant workers are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
- Speak with an asbestos attorney with Ohio experience. The first conversation is free and confidential. Asbestos trust-fund claims and civil claims run on different tracks — both can be pursued in parallel.
Asbestos-Related Diseases
Asbestos fiber exposure can cause several specific diseases that typically appear decades after the original exposure. The latency period — the gap between exposure and diagnosis — usually runs 20 to 50 years. That's why workers exposed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are receiving diagnoses today.
Mesothelioma
A rare, aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), abdomen (peritoneal), or heart (pericardial). Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, which is why a mesothelioma diagnosis often points directly to historical workplace exposure. Average latency from first exposure to diagnosis is 30-50 years.
Asbestosis
A chronic, non-cancerous scarring of lung tissue caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. Asbestosis causes progressive shortness of breath, persistent cough, and reduced lung function. It does not improve with treatment, and it is a recognized basis for compensation under most trust schedules and civil claims.
Lung Cancer
Asbestos exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, particularly when combined with a history of smoking. Asbestos-related lung cancer is compensable under the same trust schedules and civil claim avenues as mesothelioma.
Other Recognized Diseases
Pleural plaques, pleural thickening, laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and certain gastrointestinal cancers are also recognized as asbestos-related under various trust schedules and case-law authorities, though eligibility and proof requirements vary by claim type.
If you have any of these diagnoses and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or were exposed in any documented capacity, you may have a claim worth pursuing. Speak with an attorney before assuming you don't qualify.
Cross-State & Regional Corridor Workers
Missouri and Illinois workers have historically followed industrial construction and maintenance contracts across state lines, including into Ohio and other Midwestern states. The Mississippi River industrial corridor — stretching from St. Louis northward through major power generation, chemical manufacturing, and refining facilities — produced generations of pipefitters, insulators, boilermakers, and millwrights who traveled to job sites throughout the Midwest.
Workers based in Ohio and Illinois who may have worked at the PowerConneX facility, or at comparable Ohio energy centers, retain legal rights in their home states and in plaintiff-favorable venues including Madison County, Illinois and St. Clair County, Illinois, depending on where their exposure is documented and where defendant companies conduct business.
Missouri and Illinois workers who performed outage work or turnaround maintenance at Midwestern power facilities — and who may have also worked at facilities such as Labadie, Portage des Sioux, or the Monsanto chemical complex in St. Louis County — may have accumulated substantial cumulative asbestos exposures across multiple job sites over the course of long union careers.
Data Sources
Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:
- EPA ECHO Facility Compliance Database — enforcement and compliance records for industrial facilities
- OSHA Establishment Search — federal workplace inspection history
- EIA Form 860 Plant Data — power-plant equipment and ownership records (where applicable)
- Ohio Environmental Protection Agency NESHAP asbestos abatement notification records
- Published asbestos trial and trust fund records (publicly filed court documents)
- AsbestosIndex Product & Manufacturer Crosswalk — historical asbestos-containing product schedules linked to manufacturers
If specific equipment or product claims in this article are sourced from a non-public database, the source is identified parenthetically within the text above.