Hydrogen is transforming a tiny Utah coal town. Could its success hold lessons for similar communities?

[Caribbeans]

The Intermountain Power Project on the outskirts of Delta, a small town of roughly 4,000 residents in Utah’s West Desert. The IPP’s owners, an association of small Utah municipalities, aim to replace the existing coal-fired power plant with two hydrogen-capable gas turbines. Emma Penrod/Utility Dive

Hydrogen is transforming a tiny Utah coal town. Could its success hold lessons for similar communities?

Uutilitydive.com | Emma Penrod | Jan. 15, 2025

The roads in and out of Delta, Utah, are dotted with ghost towns. The oldest date back to the Pony Express. The majority saw their heyday during the gold rush; now they mostly consist of stone markers and the occasional remnants of an old cabin.

And like many of the towns that remain in Utah’s West Desert, Delta has faced the very real possibility that it, too, could be relegated to the dustbin of history sooner rather than later. Town mayor John Niles recalls having conversations with his city council about the possibility that they could face an exodus of residents or even a foreclosure crisis when the Intermountain Power Agency announced in 2017 that it planned to close by 2025 the 1.9 GW coal-fired power plant that accounts for roughly half the town’s total GDP.

In a town of just 3,800 residents, these weren’t anonymous citizens who stood to lose their homes. Niles himself worried that his two sons, who both work at the IPP coal plant just as he did before he ran for city council, would be forced to move away to find work.

Instead, the town today is experiencing something of a housing shortage. Faced with the possibility of losing its largest customer — the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — if it continued to burn coal, the Intermountain Power Agency decided to replace the coal plant with a pair of gas-fired turbines with a combined capacity of 840 MW designed to run on 100% green hydrogen by 2045...more
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/hydrogen-transforming-utah-coal-town-aces-delta-intermountain-power-project-ladwp/731685/