Los Angeles’ coal ban set to saddle ratepayers with crushing electricity costs

Los Angeles recently cut ties with coal to usher in its 100% clean energy goal by 2035, which officials are touting as residents suffer from high electricity rates.

In 2024, “coal and petroleum” powered 11 percent of Los Angeles, but the city announced Thursday that it is no longer receiving energy generated from coal as of last week. Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass touted the city’s departure from coal on X on Friday as a “historic milestone,” though the power supply loss likely spells bad news for Los Angeles residents who already pay 20 percent more on electricity than the national average, according to EnergySage data and the CEO of the American Energy Institute, Jason Isaac.

“Los Angeles may continue to lead, but not in the right direction. It is leading in expensive and unreliable energy, which is nothing to brag about, yet that is exactly what city officials are doing,” Isaac told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “By cutting off affordable and reliable coal power from neighboring states, they are killing good jobs in the West and replacing dependable American energy with Chinese-made, weather-dependent, and costly technologies. City leaders can repeat the word ‘clean,’ but as more energy jobs move from California to China, Los Angeles will end up importing more Asian air pollution along with more unreliable power.”

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) was importing coal-driven energy from the Intermountain Power Project (IPP) facility in Utah until the plant stopped operating the day before Thanksgiving, according to a local news outlet. Utah, Los Angeles, and California all have green energy transition goals, and the IPP reportedly stopped producing power in pursuit of a “cleaner” energy source.

“This is a defining moment for the City of Los Angeles. L.A.’s coal divestment is not just about discontinuing the use of coal to power our city — it’s about building a clean energy economy that benefits every Angeleno. This milestone will further accelerate our transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2035,” Bass said in a Thursday statement. “With major investments in solar, wind, and [electric vehicle] EV charging infrastructure, record amounts of stormwater captured, and bold initiatives in place to reduce carbon emissions citywide, we are taking action to build a cleaner, greener city that will benefit Angelenos for generations to come.”

A spokesperson for Bass’s office referred the DCNF to the Thursday press release.

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