On a construction site along the Los Angeles River, just south of where the four highways converge in Vernon, cranes rolled up a massive white pipe into the air on a recent weekday morning.
The pipe is eventually connected to a fuel dispenser, where it acts as a hydrogen storage container. It is a growing but controversial energy source that is considered key to California’s ambitious climate targets.
The site is developed by a New Jersey-based company called Avina and works with Vernon Public Utilities. Completed this October, it will produce up to four tons of compressed green hydrogen per day to drive heavy-duty trucks and buses and help clean up one of the state’s worst polluting sectors.
According to Avina, the facility is expected to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions that warm around 130,000 tonnes of planet each year. Company officials said it would be the largest clean hydrogen project in the country to dispense on-site (meaning pumps that the fleet can refuel).
The project is rising despite the rapidly changing energy landscape in the United States. In recent months, the Trump administration has reduced grants, grants and tax benefits that support wind, solar and renewable energy projects, while simultaneously defending fossil fuels in the name of energy independence. Trump received a record-breaking donation from oil and gas profits during the 2024 presidential election.
Construction is continuing at Vernon’s new Avina Clean hydrogen facility. Company officials said it would be the largest clean hydrogen project in the country to dispense on-site (meaning pumps that the fleet can refuel).
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
Hydrogen is also hit by the administration’s changing goals, with the plans to end Trump’s groundbreaking spending plan (so-called big beautiful bill) federal tax incentives for the new hydrogen project, the new hydrogen project, from January 1, 2028. Already this year, the Department of Energy has cancelled billions of dollars to fundraising clean energy projects.
But even without such support, Southern California has doubled hydrogen as both an investment and a pathway to carbon neutrality.
“This is one of the reasons why I think California really stands out,” said Vishal Shah, founder and CEO of Avina, walking through the Vernon construction site. “Because when federal law changes occur, states will step up.”
Shah said California climate leaders are part of what attracted Abina to the state. The project received a grant from Calstart, a nonprofit organization for Cline Transportation, and two rounds of funding from energy and technology investors, including Chart Industries and KBR.
“And what’s driving us is also state-level regulations that are continuing to push these fleets and push many other consumers to zero emissions,” Shah said. California is committed to reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
However, hydrogen does not have detractors. This process is energy and water intensive and has historically been linked to the production of natural gas. This is one of the most common ways to produce it is to heat methane to release hydrogen, which can also release nitrogen oxides and other contaminants in the process.
Vishal Shah, founder and CEO of Avina, is being filmed at the company’s planned clean hydrogen facility that will help the transport industry move from fossil fuels.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
“Instead of reducing climate emissions, hydrogen projects can increase emissions and extend the lifespan of fossil fuel infrastructure,” wrote non-profit Food & Water Watch in a recent news release on California’s hydrogen hub.
The link to hydrogen to fossil fuels may also be why the Trump administration’s approach is muddy than approaches to renewable energies such as wind and the sun. Just before the passage of the big beautiful bill, the Senate decided to extend the deadline for the hydrogen tax credit from the end of this year to the end of 2027.
Avina says she’s working on a cleaner approach. The Vernon facility uses a large electrolyzer machine equipped with 100% clean energy to divide hydrogen from hydrogen. The machines will be fueled along with wind and solar projects in California and energy sourced from Vernon Utilities, which currently houses 40% renewable energy.
According to Margie Otto, assistant general manager at Vernon Public Utilities, the water used in this process is approximately 30,000-40,000 gallons per day – no imported goods, no imported goods.
“I know there’s all this legislative requirement to go as green as possible – how do you get there, wherever possible?” Otto said. “When you look at a variety of renewable sources, such as solar and wind, geothermal, there are limitations on the amount they can offer and the sustainable availability. Clean hydrogen is one of the great media for both.
Construction worker on the premises of the Abinaklean Hydrogen Facility. The project has received grants from the clean transport nonprofit Calstart and the California Energy Commission.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
Whether Southern California will become a hydrogen juggernaut will depend in part on whether projects like Avina will work. Shah said Vernon’s site will meet deadlines and qualify for federal tax credits, and that one of his main objectives is to bring the cost of retail hydrogen fuel to parity along with diesel. The current rate is around $20-30 per kilogram, he said.
“We certainly see us get there in a relatively short amount of time,” Shah said. Partly because the state continues to invest in hydrogen, and because the energy sources for wind and solar depend on the project, it depends on cost over time, making hydrogen a more affordable outlook.
Jack Brouwer, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Irvine who is not involved in the project, said it will serve as a proof of concept for the region and other parts of the country.
“We’re also director of UC Irvine’s Clean Energy Institute,” said Brouwer, who is also director of UC Irvine’s Clean Energy Research Institute.
He said that since Avina is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise, it would be wise to concentrate on heavy-duty trucks and freight transport as hydrogen is not actually caught up in fuel cell vehicles and passenger cars running on hydrogen despite its statewide network of refueling stations. Furthermore, focusing on the transport sector has the best health benefits for disadvantaged communities, for disadvantaged communities who live near the Port of Los Angeles and for cargo corridors that traditionally spew diesel contamination.
“It’s still going to be more expensive than diesel, but if they can get closer, it’s going to be very exciting,” Brouwer said. “So, as technology costs lower the normal cost curve, we’ll start to find people who are adopting this technology, like the solar and wind powers have.”
View of construction at Vernon’s new Avinaclean hydrogen facility. Split hydrogen from the water using a large electrolyzer machine equipped with 100% clean energy.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s wind and solar tax cuts will have a slower impact on hydrogen projects that rely on them. Under the big beautiful bill, the Wind and Sun project must either begin construction by July next year or service by the end of 2027 in order to receive credit.
Brouwer said these sectors are already more affordable and it is unlikely that they will lose much momentum in California.
Avina is not just an ongoing hydrogen project in LA County. The Texas-based company called Element Resources is planning to build one of North America’s largest green water plants, the $1.85 billion Lancaster Clean Energy Center, scheduled to open in 2027.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Electricity is converting the city’s largest natural gas-fired power plant, the Sprinkler Power Plant (the city’s largest natural gas-fired power plant), into a hydrogen-enabled facility, as part of its decarbonization strategy. LA is working on 100% renewable energy by 2035.
The estimated $800 million project will replace the gas units in the two plants with units that can operate with a mixture of natural gas and at least 30% hydrogen, and is expected to be completed towards the end of 2029. DWP officials said supply will eventually increase and as technology evolves it will reach 100% green hydrogen.
“There are special applications where hydrogen makes sense and it’s difficult to electrostatically,” an agency official said in an email:
The project is not only key to cities achieving clean energy goals, but also ensures reliable sources of energy during crises that strain grids such as heat waves and wildfires, officials said. However, the plan has attracted considerable opposition from environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Los Angeles waterkeeper. A waterkeeper in Los Angeles says the mix of hydrogen and natural gas (so-called grey hydrogen) is not aligned with LA’s climate targets.
“We are concerned about a lot of the unknown that comes with the Sputultgood proposal,” said Ben Harris, senior staff attorney at LA Waterkeeper. “They rely on the assumption that hydrogen gas is available in the open market, and until then they’ll burn natural gas.”
Harris referenced a recent report from researchers at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. This has a significant water use footprint in California, which is thick in water, and we have found it to be implemented with caution.
However, while DWP hopes to roll out more alternatives to hydrogen to meet clean power goals, including Wind and Solar, Harris has tentatively supported green hydrogen projects, such as the Vernon rise.
“If that’s done correctly, green hydrogen will not be produced through fossil fuels,” Harris said. “And it could potentially use less water than other traditional fossil fuel production, so I think it has a role to play.”
Others in the state are even more enthusiastic about hydrogen, even in the face of a federal administration that prefers fossil fuel fuels. In April, a bipartisan group of California lawmakers called on the Trump administration to maintain $1.2 billion in funding for the state’s hydrogen hub, noting that the project “plays an important role in ensuring control of America’s energy.”
Brouwer of UC Irvine said the role of hydrogen as both a transition fuel and a long-term climate solution is almost inevitable.
“I don’t know how big of a role I am, but it certainly plays a role, so it’s a good investment,” he said.
Ultimately, he added that it doesn’t matter whether the green hydrogen project will be driven by profits, legislative obligations or other motivations, as long as the climate benefits are achieved.
“We hope California and Los Angeles will show this to the whole world, and we hope that the whole world will adopt this technology. “That’s what has to happen.”
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