Los Angeles is moving to rebuild two units of a coastal power plant that has run on natural gas since the late 1950s, aiming to make it capable of burning green hydrogen as the city races toward its goal of 100% renewable electricity by 2035.
LADWP, the nation's largest municipal utility serving 4 million residents, is seeking construction contractors to modernize Units 1 and 2 at Scattergood Generating Station in Playa del Rey, adjacent to LAX and Dockweiler Beach. The project is listed on the city's bid portal. The plant would initially keep running on natural gas, with turbines designed to switch to hydrogen blends as supply becomes available.
The hydrogen LADWP envisions for Scattergood is expected to come partly from Utah, where the utility is a partner in the Intermountain Power Project, a former coal plant being converted to run on a hydrogen-natural gas blend by 2025 and targeting 100% hydrogen by 2045.
Source: NationGraph.
The case for the upgrade rests on reliability. Solar and wind generate most of the city's power during daylight hours, but hydrogen-capable turbines would serve as firm, dispatchable backup when renewables aren't producing. LA has faced growing grid pressure from heat waves and, after the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires, intensified scrutiny of utility infrastructure decisions.
But environmental and community groups are not sold. Organizations including Communities for a Better Environment and Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA have argued the "hydrogen-ready" framing amounts to greenwashing, pointing out that the turbines will burn fossil gas for years before any meaningful hydrogen supply exists. Combustion of either fuel also produces nitrogen oxide emissions, a respiratory health concern for communities near the plant.
The tension has roots in a 2019 reversal: Mayor Eric Garcetti scrapped a planned $5 billion rebuild of Scattergood and two other gas plants after a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study showed LA could hit its clean-energy goals without them. The current project is narrower, framing the modernization as a bridge technology rather than a long-term gas investment, but critics say the distinction matters less to people breathing the air.
The solicitation was amended as of September 30, 2026, and it is not yet clear what changed from the original posting. LADWP has not publicly detailed a construction timeline for the modernization.
For a city that has staked its identity on the most aggressive clean-energy target of any major US utility, Scattergood will be a test of whether hydrogen-ready infrastructure looks like a clean future or a fossil fuel extension when construction actually begins.
