How to Build a Green Hydrogen Economy for the US West

Out in Utah, a coal-fired power plant supplying electricity to Los Angeles is being outfitted with natural-gas-fired turbines that will eventually be able to run on hydrogen, created via electrolysis with wind and solar power and stored in massive underground caverns for use when that clean energy isn’t available for the grid.

This billion-dollar-plus project could eventually expand to more renewable-powered electrolyzers, storage, and generators to supply dispatchable power for the greater Western U.S. grid. It could also grow to include hydrogen pipelines to augment and replace the natural gas used for heating and industry or supply hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle fleets across the region.

That’s the vision of the Western Green Hydrogen Initiative (WGHI), a group representing 11 Western states, two Canadian provinces and key green hydrogen industry players including Mitsubishi and utilities Dominion Energy and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. WGHI launched Tuesday to align state and federal efforts to create “a regional green hydrogen strategy,” including “a large-scale, long-duration renewable energy storage regional reserve.”

At the heart of this effort are two projects in central Utah. The first is the Intermountain Power Project, a coal-fired power plant operated by the state-owned Intermountain Power Agency, which supplies municipal utilities in Utah and California, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. By 2025, Intermountain will be converted to turbines to supply 840 megawatts of power using natural gas blended with 30 percent hydrogen, a proportion that will rise to 100 percent hydrogen over the coming decades.