Work is progressing on the Advanced Clean Energy Store Delta project near Delta, Utah, at the 4,614-acre site of the Intermountain Power Project. Delta is just south of Salt Lake City. The ACES Delta project involves retooling an old coal-fired power plant to burn a blend of natural gas and green hydrogen. The project will use Mitsubishi’s M501JAC turbines capable of burning 30% hydrogen blended with natural gas and up to 100% hydrogen by 2045, according to Power Magazine’s 2022 report about the project. Construction began in 2022. The project is a joint venture between Haddington Ventures, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Chevron. Chevron bought out the company Magnum Development and its original share in the project in September 2023, to become the majority investor. The project secured a DOE loan guarantee of $504 million in June 2022. The project was first unveiled in May 2019 and was originally hoped to be online in 2025. According to Mitsubishi:
“The first project to combine utility and
industrial-scale renewable hydrogen production, storage, and transmission, the
Advanced Clean Energy Storage project will support the Intermountain Power
Agency’s (IPA) IPP Renewed Project—an 840 MW hydrogen-capable gas turbine
combined cycle power plant that will initially run on a blend of green hydrogen
and natural gas starting in 2025 and incrementally expanding to 100% green
hydrogen by 2045.”
Work yet to be done includes
drilling wells into two massive salt dome caverns, which together are capable
of holding the equivalent of 4.5 million barrels of oil. The caverns will be
filled with a 70%/30% natural gas and hydrogen blend. The coal-fired plant is
beginning decommissioning this year and is expected to be fully decommissioned
by 2027. Power transmission lines are being upgraded. Surplus renewable energy,
or curtailed generation, from Utah and Southern California, is expected to be
used to power the electrolyzers that will produce the green hydrogen.
California has a large amount of solar overgeneration and sometimes has to give
it away at a loss. Thus, that energy source is expected to be available at a low
cost. The initial design calls for converting 220 MW of renewable energy into
100 metric tons of green hydrogen daily. Petar Willhite, project manager for
the EPC contractor, The Industrial Company (TIC), notes that the project
provides:
“…a significant opportunity for deploying seasonable
renewable energy storage at a massive scale.”
Greenhouse gas emissions are
expected to decrease by 75% compared to the coal-fired plant.
According to Good News
Network:
“The final piece of work on the project is the
modernization of the 2,400-MW transmission system linking the plant to Southern
California. That will include building new DC converter stations at both ends
of the line. It is due for completion in 2027.”
“Advancing the project to this point has required a lot
of cooperation. IPP’s participant utilities range from among the largest in the
country to some very small towns, all with very different needs.”
“We were able to come together for a project that works
for everyone by relying on the goodwill and working relationships that have
been developed over nearly 40 years of operating the original project,” Ward
says. “This is truly a shining example of the benefits of regional energy
cooperation.”
The upgraded power connection
and related equipment to Southern California solar generation sources allow the
project to be powered by the significant amount of curtailed solar in the
region. It also allows for the delivery of needed power on demand to the
Southern California region when power demand rises in events like heat waves.
Mitsubishi wrote a white paper in 2022 calling for more energy storage in the Western U.S. I could not find a map that shows a salt dome near the site, but I assume it is well-confirmed. The engineering company tasked with developing the salt dome caverns is very experienced in salt dome hydrocarbon and hydrogen storage. The location appears to be near the Bonneville Evaporite Basin, which is at and near the surface. In the subsurface, all I could find was a map showing bedded evaporites in the Sevier Desert region. The image below gives the depth (3400-4300ft) to the storage caverns.
References:
Hydrogen
Gas Blend Will Reduce Power Plant’s Emissions by 75%–as it Helps Power 6 States.
Andy Corbley. Good News Network. June 3, 2025. Hydrogen
Gas Blend Will Reduce Power Plant's Emissions by 75%–as it Helps Power 6 States
Coal-Fired
Power Plant Will Gain New Life with Green Hydrogen. James Leggate. ENR Mountain
States & Southwest. April 26, 2025. Coal-Fired Power Plant
Will Gain New Life with Green Hydrogen | Engineering News-Record
Chevron
acquires majority stake in the advanced clean energy storage hydrogen project
in delta, Utah. Chevron. Press Release. September 12, 2023. Chevron
acquires majority stake in the Advanced Clean Energy Storage hydrogen project
in Delta, Utah — Chevron
Why
the Western U.S. Needs Energy Storage. Mitsubishi Power. March 2022. Mitsubishi-Power-White-Paper-Why-the-Western-U.S.-Needs-Energy-Storage.pdf
Bold
Moves for a Brighter Tomorrow. ACES Delta. Advanced
Clean Energy Storage Site | ACES Delta
ACES
Delta's Giant Utah Salt Cavern Hydrogen Storage Project Gets $504M Conditional
DOE Loan Guarantee. Sonal Patel. Power Magazine. April 28, 2022. ACES
Delta's Giant Utah Salt Cavern Hydrogen Storage Project Gets $504M Conditional
DOE Loan Guarantee
The
Power of Collaboration. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group. Advanced
Clean Energy Storage Project | Mitsubishi Power Americas, Inc.
Mapping
mineralogy in evaporite basins through time using multispectral Landsat data:
Examples from the Bonneville basin, Utah, USA. Mark H. Radwin and Brenda B. Bowen.
August 2020. Earth Surf Process Landforms. 2021;1–17. Mapping
mineralogy in evaporite basins through time using multispectral Landsat data:
Examples from the Bonneville basin, Utah, USA
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