Grid · Analysis

LADWP's power supply is cleaning up on schedule, mostly

The municipal utility is retiring coal and buying desert solar close to its own schedule. The harder, slower part, the transmission to carry that power into the basin, is the piece still ahead.

BY THE RENEWABLE ENERGY LA EDITORS · FILED OCTOBER 11, 2026 · 6 MIN READ ·

How the plan actually works

Open your Los Angeles Department of Water and Power bill and you will not find the one number that matters most here: the fuel mix behind your meter. LADWP is the largest municipal utility in the country, and it still runs on a blend of coal, natural gas, large hydropower, and a growing share of solar. The city has told the utility to get to 100 percent clean power, and the deadline it is working toward, roughly 2035 at last public target, is among the most ambitious of any big American city and well ahead of California's statewide 2045 goal.

LADWP's plan to get there has a name most ratepayers never hear. The utility calls it the Strategic Long-Term Resource Plan, the document where it lays out which power plants it will retire, what it will build out in the desert, and the wires it needs to connect them. It leans on a study most people in the basin have at least heard of: the LA100 study, run by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (the federal lab in Colorado, abbreviated NREL), which mapped several paths to a fully clean city grid and found 100 percent renewable electricity by about 2035 is possible, but only with a fast build of solar, storage, and new transmission.

The coal, and where it really stands

Two coal plants have carried most of LADWP's coal power for decades. The utility walked away from the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona when that plant closed in 2019, and it is now reworking the Intermountain Power Project in Delta, Utah, where LADWP is the largest participant. The Utah plant is being rebuilt to burn natural gas, with a stated plan to blend in hydrogen over time, under a project the operating agency calls IPP Renewed, slated to make the switch around mid-decade at last public schedule.

Trading coal for gas is a real cut in carbon and in soot, but it is not clean power, and the hydrogen part is the uncertain part. Green hydrogen at that scale is new, and the cost and the supply are not settled. This desk reads the coal exit as close to done and the hydrogen promise as a bet still being placed. If you want one honest sentence: the coal is leaving roughly on schedule, and what fully replaces the gas is not yet proven.

The desert solar, and the wires to carry it

Out in Kern County, the clearest sign of the build-out sends power toward the basin: the Eland Solar and Storage Center. Developed by Arevon, Eland pairs hundreds of megawatts of solar with large banks of batteries so the energy can be shifted into the evening, when demand and prices peak. It is one of several desert solar and storage deals LADWP has signed at prices that, at last public report, came in low enough to beat running old gas.

Moving that power is the job of lines like the Barren Ridge corridor, which runs from the Mojave down toward the San Fernando Valley and was upgraded in the last decade to carry more renewables. More capacity is needed, and new or rebuilt lines face the usual gauntlet of environmental review, landowners, and fire-risk rules in a region that burns. Watch the transmission timeline, not the solar groundbreakings, if you want to know whether 2035 is real. Los Angeles sits in a basin ringed by mountains, and most of the cheap sun is a hundred miles out, so the wires decide whether the replacement power actually arrives.

Worth watching this month

1. Watch for LADWP board materials on the next Strategic Long-Term Resource Plan update, which set the retirement and build dates everything else hangs on, and which actually matter more than any single groundbreaking.

2. Watch the Intermountain Power Project in Utah for word on when the coal units stop and the rebuilt gas plant starts, a milestone slated for roughly mid-decade at last public schedule.

3. Watch for environmental review notices on desert transmission upgrades north of the basin, since those timelines, not the solar farms, are the real test of the 2035 target.

4. Watch your own summer bill and the power content label that comes with it, a routine mailing but the one public number that shows the fuel mix shifting year to year.

Where this dispatch reads

LADWP, Strategic Long-Term Resource Plan and power content label (municipal utility), www.ladwp.com, The utility's own plan for retirements and new resources, plus the annual label showing your fuel mix.
NREL, Los Angeles 100% Renewable Energy Study (LA100) (.gov federal lab), www.nrel.gov/analysis/la100.html, The federal study behind the city's 2035 goal, with the pathways and the transmission it would require.
California Energy Commission, SB 100 Joint Agency Report (.gov state agency), www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/senate-bill-100-sb-100-joint-agency-report, State tracking of the 100 percent clean electricity law and statewide power plant data.
U.S. Energy Information Administration, electricity data (.gov federal), www.eia.gov/electricity, Independent federal data on utility generation, fuel mix, and plant retirements.
Intermountain Power Agency, IPP Renewed (project agency), www.ipautah.com, The owner's page on the Utah coal-to-gas conversion that LADWP is the largest participant in.
Arevon, Eland Solar and Storage Center (project developer), arevon.com, The developer's project page for the Kern County solar-plus-storage supplying LADWP.

Questions readers have asked

Is my LADWP power really going to be 100 percent clean by 2035?

That is the city's target, and the LA100 study says it is possible. It depends on building solar, storage, and transmission on a tight timeline, so treat 2035 as a goal the utility is working toward, not a guarantee.

Did LADWP already quit coal?

Nearly. It left the Navajo plant in Arizona when that closed in 2019, and the Utah coal plant it relies on is being converted to gas around mid-decade. Coal is close to gone; what fully replaces it is still settling.

Why does transmission keep coming up?

Because the cheap sun is in the desert and the people are in the basin, and the high-voltage lines between them take years to permit and build. Without new or upgraded wires, desert solar cannot fully reach your meter.

Will any of this lower my bill?

Maybe over time, since new solar and storage have come in cheaper than running old gas at last public report. Rates also carry the cost of new wires and upgrades, and the near-term bill is driven more by heat and summer demand than by the fuel mix.