Waste power plant in California, United States of America. Approximate location 33.9949, -118.1538.
WasteCaliforniaUnited States of AmericaRetired
Commerce Refuse To Energy is a 12 MW waste power plant in California, United States of America. It is operated by Los Angeles County Sanitation. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 17k homes (estimated). It ranks #5464 of 10,938 United States of America power plants by installed capacity. In context, the national grid averages 384 gCO₂/kWh (43.0% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id CT-1822.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: EIA-860M May 2026 retired generator inventory, summed by Plant ID; fuel: Climate TRACE source-record fuel
At 12 MW, Commerce Refuse To Energy is well above the median waste plant in United States of America (7 MW). Its current lifecycle status is “retired” — so it is not yet, or no longer, generating at full output. Waste-to-energy plants burn municipal solid waste to generate electricity and heat, cutting landfill volume while recovering energy from residual waste.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Los Angeles County Sanitation.
This waste plant recovers energy by combusting municipal or industrial waste. It sits in a cold semi-arid steppe climate (Köppen BSk) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 34.0°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
Heating degree-days here run 80% below the median power plant in this dataset — a proxy for how much extra energy heated equipment must replace through its surfaces in winter.
Climate heat-demand index: 20/100 — this site sits in the bottom third of the power plants we cover by heating degree-days.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #208 largest waste power plant of 551 in United States of America by capacity.
United States of America has 551 waste power plants in this dataset, together about 10,154 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 33.9949, -118.1538 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Commerce Refuse To Energy is a 12 MW source-record waste power plant in California, United States of America.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 16,518 homes (estimated).
Commerce Refuse To Energy is operated by Los Angeles County Sanitation.
