A contentious $800-million plan to modernize Los Angeles’ largest natural-gas-fired power plant has triggered a legal battle, pitting the city’s Department of Water and Power (DWP) against a coalition of prominent environmental groups.
The project, slated for the Scattergood Generating Station in Playa del Rey, aims to replace aging infrastructure with turbines capable of burning a blend of natural gas and hydrogen. The DWP promotes the conversion as a critical milestone in achieving Los Angeles’ ambitious goal of 100% clean energy by 2035. However, environmentalists argue that the proposal—approved by the city last year—is a thinly veiled effort to extend the lifecycle of fossil fuel infrastructure under the guise of “green” innovation.
Two separate lawsuits, filed by coalitions including the Sierra Club, Food and Water Watch, and the Center for Biological Diversity, allege that the city violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Plaintiffs contend that the DWP failed to conduct a rigorous analysis of the project’s actual impacts, specifically regarding the logistics of hydrogen fuel, which currently lacks a defined source, transportation route, or storage plan.
“It’s framed very much as this beneficial, clean, environmentally positive project, and from our perspective, it looks a lot more like the city is investing very close to a billion dollars to keep a methane gas plant on line,” said Theo Caretto, a staff attorney at Communities for a Better Environment.
The legal challenge centers on the ambiguity of the fuel source. In its own environmental impact report, the DWP acknowledged that the “green hydrogen that would supply the proposed project has not yet been identified.” Legal experts, such as Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, suggest this lack of detail creates a significant regulatory risk.
“If the project description is not including how much hydrogen will be burned on-site, or using a best-case scenario of hydrogen that masks the worst case of fossil-gas-only combustion, DWP is not providing some important information to nearby residents,” Elkind noted.
The viability of the plan is further clouded by a shifting energy landscape. The hydrogen industry has faced significant setbacks, including the cancellation of major funding initiatives and the abandonment of infrastructure projects like the Southern California Gas Co.’s “Angeles Link,” which was intended to bring hydrogen into the L.A. Basin. Critics argue that as the price of solar power and battery storage continues to fall, the reliance on an unproven, expensive hydrogen supply chain is both economically and environmentally shortsighted.
Jason Rondou, the DWP’s interim chief operating officer, acknowledged that the agency is subject to the limitations of the nascent hydrogen market. When asked about the potential for the plant to rely solely on natural gas if hydrogen remains unavailable by the 2029 deadline, Rondou admitted it was “theoretically possible,” though he maintained that the facility is necessary for grid reliability during extreme heat events.
“The reality is that some of this does depend on hydrogen infrastructure,” Rondou said, adding that even if the hydrogen industry struggles, the investment ensures the station is equipped for a future transition. He also highlighted that the city has already invested $5 billion in solar and battery storage projects over the past two years, with the city reaching 65% renewable energy usage as of last year.
As the legal proceedings move forward in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the case serves as a flashpoint in the broader debate over how urban centers should balance the urgent need for grid reliability with the necessity of phasing out fossil fuels. For now, the future of the Scattergood Generating Station remains in limbo, trapped between the city’s climate aspirations and the physical, financial, and legal realities of an uncertain energy transition.
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