Two of the three units at the Scattergood Generating Station in Los Angeles will be converted to hydrogen-ready combined-cycle turbines, according to an $800 million plan approved this week by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). At 830 MW, Scattergood is the largest gas-fired power plant in the city.
The units being retired (Units #1 and #2) are gas-fired turbines that came online in the 1950s and have a combined output of about 370 MW. By law, they are required to be retired by 2029. They will be replaced with turbines intended to operate on a mixture of natural gas and at least 30% hydrogen, with the long-term goal of running on 100% green hydrogen. The operation of Scattergood’s Unit #3, which came online in the 1970s and produces about 460 MW, is unaffected by the change.
The plan, formally known as Scattergood Generating Station Units 1 and 2 Green Hydrogen-Ready Modernization Project, calls for the LADWP to purchase hydrogen from suppliers, as it will not produce any hydrogen of its own for the Scattergood units. The agency said in a 2024 report on the project that it expected a sufficient market supply of green hydrogen by the time the dual-fuel turbines were fully commissioned in 2029 but also noted that the green hydrogen system that would supply the plant was in the “planning stages.” The report did not address where the hydrogen would come from or how it would get to the power plant.
Critics of the LADWP’s Scattergood plan have cited its cost and the potential for it to operate as a gas-only turbine if hydrogen supplies end up being insufficient and/or uneconomic.
The project was to receive $100 million in funding as part of the California hydrogen hub, known as the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES), but the Trump administration canceled funding for the $1.2 billion hub earlier this fall. (It also terminated funding for the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub; awards for the other five hub projects are considered to be at risk.) The LADWP said it will fund the project through its own power system budget.
