Los Angeles is officially done with coal.
City officials on Thursday announced that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has stopped receiving coal-generated electricity from the last remaining coal source. Utah Intermountain Power Plant Project.
“This is a defining moment for the city of Los Angeles,” Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference. “Los Angeles' coal phase out is about more than just ending the use of coal to power our city—it's about creating a clean energy economy that benefits every Los Angeles resident. This milestone will further accelerate our transition to 100% clean energy by 2035”
Electricity generation is one of the main causes of climate change, and burning coal is the most climate- and environmentally destructive way of producing electricity. The city has committed to achieving carbon-free energy in the next decade by investing in cleaner technologies such as solar, wind, battery power and hydrogen.
California is gradually moving away from coal, which provided just 2.2% of the state's electricity in 2024, according to California Energy Commission. Almost all of it came from the Intermountain Power Project, which provided 11% of Los Angeles' electricity last year. In 2016, DWP sold another major coal source, the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona.
“This transition has been years in the making,” DWP executive director Janisse Quiñones said in a statement. “This reflects the hard work of our employees, the support of our customers and the leadership of our elected officials. Together, we are building a cleaner, more sustainable energy future for Los Angeles.”
According to Quiñones, more than 60% of the city's energy supply now comes from renewable sources, including recently completed Eland Solar Energy and Energy Storage Center in Kern County, where deliveries began in Los Angeles and Glendale in August. This is one of the largest solar power plants in the country.
That's a dramatic change from 20 years ago, when the city's energy mix was about 3 percent renewables and more than 50 percent coal, Bass said.
However, Los Angeles is not completely free of fossil fuels. The city will continue to use Intermountain's new natural gas generating units. They can run on a fuel mixture of natural gas and up to 30% green hydrogen, with plans to switch to 100% green hydrogen in the future. (City officials said green hydrogen is expected to be added to the fuel mix next year.)
DVP Board also recently approved an $800 million plan to convert two units at the Scattergood power plant in Playa del Rey to run on a mixture of natural gas and green hydrogen, with a similar goal of running entirely on hydrogen as new supplies become available.
Some energy and environmental groups have criticized the plan, which they say extends the life of fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when the city should be focusing squarely on proven clean technologies such as solar, wind and battery storage.
Still, many noted the end of coal power in the nation's second-largest city as an important step forward, especially at a time when the federal government is pushing back against clean energy and promoting coal, oil and other fossil fuels.
“This is a wonderful, momentous day,” Evan Gillespie, a partner at the decarbonization nonprofit Industious Labs, said during the press conference. He noted that when he first moved to Los Angeles nearly 20 years ago, accusing the country's largest public utility of abandoning coal was considered impertinent, even laughable.
“If every utility, if every city had the courage and leadership that this city has, the world would be a very different place today,” he said. “I know the model we've built here will help the rest of this country and the rest of the world follow in Los Angeles' footsteps over the next 20 years.”
