Preparations Continue for Major Green Hydrogen Production Plant in California

A hydrogen production company that develops the fuel using renewable energy is moving forward with plans for a $1.85-billion solar-powered manufacturing facility in California.

Element Resources, with corporate headquarters in Houston, Texas, and a project development office in San Diego, California, said construction of its Lancaster Clean Energy Center (LCEC) in Lancaster, California, will begin later this year. The company has said the LCEC would be the “largest off-grid renewable green hydrogen production project in the U.S.” The facility is sited on nearly 2,100 acres in Lancaster, about 70 miles north of Los Angeles.

Element has said the new facility is expected to produce 22,000 tons of green hydrogen each year, with production also expected to expand. California Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this year said Element Resources is among the companies receiving funds in the form of tax credits from the state’s California Jobs First program.

Plans for the LCEC were first announced in 2023. Steve Meheen, CEO of Element Resources, at the time noted the Lancaster site “is strategically located with access to highway and rail transportation to key southern California markets.” Officials have said commercial operation is expected to start in 2027, with the production plant making hydrogen fuel to support transportation, including the trucking industry and public transit, along with railroad and shipping port operations.

Hydrogen for Transportation

The plant will supply Lancaster’s First Public Hydrogen Authority, a utility serving Lancaster and California’s well-known City of Industry. Element Resources said partners on the project include Lancaster’s city government, along with the California Transit Association, the California Hydrogen Business Council, the Center for Hydrogen Safety, and the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES) statewide hydrogen partnership. Meheen has said the on-site solar power generation will be supported by a long-duration battery energy storage system, which will enable continuous production.

The ARCHES partnership is actively looking at sites for hydrogen production across California. The group earlier this year said it is developing more than 10 hydrogen production sites statewide, focused on the state’s Central Valley, where producers would have access to renewable energy resources to power their operations. The group has said it also looking at transitioning several small-scale distributed energy systems to fuel cells. There also are plans to fuel two larger power plants—the Scattergood facility in Los Angeles, and the Lodi Energy Center in Lodi—with green hydrogen.

ARCHES also has partnerships with more than a dozen regional California transit agencies for development of hydrogen fueling stations for trucks and buses. The group also is working to replace diesel-powered heavy equipment with hydrogen fuel cells at ports in Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland.

—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.