Chevron Unveils Inaugural Solar-to-Hydrogen Project in California’s Central Valley

Chevron New Energies, a division of Chevron U.S.A. Inc., is advancing a 5MW hydrogen production project in California’s Central Valley. This initiative harnesses solar power, land, and non-potable produced water from Chevron’s assets at the Lost Hills Oil Field in Kern County to create lower carbon energy.

Electrolytic hydrogen, produced through electrolysis, will have low carbon intensity (LCI). Chevron aims to deliver large-scale hydrogen solutions to support a lower carbon world, with the facility targeting a production capacity of two tons of LCI hydrogen daily. The project’s development will unfold over multiple years, contingent on factors like legislative and regulatory policies, engineering design, permitting, and material acquisition.

“Hydrogen can play a vital role in our journey toward a lower carbon future,” said Austin Knight, vice president for hydrogen at Chevron New Energies. “Chevron already offers lower carbon fuels like sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel and others, and this project is expected to expand the portfolio of solutions Chevron could supply to the region.

“I’m excited about the scalability of this solution,” added Knight. “However, our ability to meet growing hydrogen demand and help build hydrogen fueling infrastructure in California to a commercial scale with more widespread adoption will be strongly led by state and federal energy policies that promote new lower carbon energy solutions.”

“This project will help develop key technical and commercial proof points as Chevron New Energies assesses concepts for future scale-up and new lower carbon intensity hydrogen production opportunities,” said Richard Chapman, President and CEO, Kern Economic Development Corporation. “By locating expected production in the Central Valley, we believe the project will be well positioned to meet the demand of customers along an important transportation corridor, as well as having proximity to key California urban markets.”