LCH2 Awarded Additional $1 Million to Advance Lewis County Clean Energy Campus
The Californer/10362684

CENTRALIA, Wash. - Californer -- The Lewis County Hydrogen Alliance, Inc. (LCH2) has been awarded an additional $1 million from TransAlta Centralia Board Funding, LLC, acting through its Energy Technology Board under the Centralia Coal Transition Grants program, to advance development of the Lewis County Clean Energy Campus. Total grant support now reaches $1.4 million.

The new funding supports site control, engineering, permitting, feedstock-supply and product-offtake agreements, and project-financing work. The initial assessment examined feedstock and logistics, the site-selection pathway, concept-level process engineering and permitting, supporting a recommendation to advance.

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The full-campus vision would use regional forestry residuals to produce hydrogen, clean carbon coproducts and dispatchable electricity, with a next-generation AI Advanced Compute Complex alongside the energy infrastructure.

At full buildout, the current planning case targets approximately 1,000 wet metric tonnes per day of forestry residuals and a 50-megawatt advanced-compute IT load. LCH2's management target of more than 220 family-wage jobs is a project target, not an independently completed economic-impact forecast.

"Centralia's Coal Transition Grant program was created to help communities build durable economic and energy opportunities through change. LCH2's next stage brings together Lewis County's forestry strengths, emerging clean-energy technology and new industrial demand in a way that is aligned with that long-term purpose. We are pleased to see locally grounded projects continue moving from concept toward execution, supporting the region's next industrial chapter." Said Chris Fralick, Executive Vice President, Generation and Chief Operating Officer of TransAlta

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"This $1 million award does more than extend a study — it funds the next substantive development stage. We have completed the first round of feedstock, site, engineering and permitting work, and now our job is execution: secure site control, advance the engineering and permits, formalize supply and offtake, and build a financeable commercial project," said Ken Cavallon, Executive Director of LCH2.

Near-term work is development work—not full-campus construction—and future buildout remains dependent on site control, engineering validation, permits, commercial agreements and project financing.

LCH2 invites forestry and logistics companies, energy and infrastructure partners, prospective hydrogen and carbon-product customers, technology providers and capital partners to engage. https://www.lch2.org