Intermountain Power Project in Delta, Utah is the world’s first gas turbine intentionally designed and built to operate on 100% carbon-free green hydrogen.
The Intermountain Power Project (IPP) is currently Utah’s largest coal-fueled power plant, but soon it will be the United States’ largest green-hydrogen powered generation facility.
Owned by Intermountain Power Agency (IPA), IPP will convert from an 1,800 MW coal-fueled power plant to an 840 MW combined cycle gas turbine capable of using a blend of natural gas and 30% green hydrogen upon commissioning in 2025.
Ultimately, the new gas turbine supplied by Mitsubishi Power will operate on 100% green hydrogen. This generation unit will create enough electricity to power approximately 700,000 homes for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and other participants, and is the world’s first combined cycle gas turbine intentionally designed and built to operate on 100% carbon-free green hydrogen.
IPP will leverage adjacent natural salt domes to store massive amounts of green hydrogen.
The natural salt domes can even support seasonal energy storage for the West’s increasingly renewably-powered grid. Hydrogen gas storage in salt caverns is already done around the world and in the United States.
The bulk hydrogen gas storage potential near IPP is massive. A typical cavern can store 5,512 tons of hydrogen gas, and over 100 caverns can be utilized. This is equivalent to 200,000 hydrogen buses, 1,000,000 hydrogen fuel cell cars, or 14,000 tube trailers full of hydrogen gas.
The technologies utilized at IPP are mature and proven.
All of the key components of this project – including the safe production, storage, and utilization of hydrogen – are mature technologies that have been deployed for decades to support gray hydrogen or green hydrogen in other industries.
Green hydrogen has the potential to decarbonize multiple sectors in the West and beyond.
Green hydrogen can decarbonize multiple sectors, including electricity, gas, industry, and transportation. The schematic here specifically shows how electrolytic green hydrogen stored in caverns can contribute to a clean energy system.
Upon distribution, versatile green hydrogen can be used to decarbonize nearly every sector of the economy - from electricity to the gas pipeline, as high-heat source for difficult-to-electrify industries such as cement or steel making, as an industrial chemical feedstock, as a transportation fuel for trucking, cars, aviation, rail, or shipping, and much more.