Power Innovation in Georgia: Inside the McDonough Milestone

In June 2025, on the final day of testing at Georgia Power’s Plant McDonough-Atkinson, the control room was electric. Less than 10 miles outside of Atlanta, a committed group of engineers, operators, and project leaders leaned over consoles, exchanging ideas and troubleshooting the future in real time. It was late – well past dinner – and the stakes were high. The outcome of years of planning and months of work was coming to fruition in this moment, that evening, one of those heavy summer evenings so common in Georgia – one of those that seems to be at the edge of bursting at any given moment.

The crew – a group of dedicated individuals from Mitsubishi Power, Georgia Power, and EPRI – in the building felt this tension. “The fact of the matter is this was the first of its kind in the world, and that wasn’t lost on us,” explains Drew Uptain, a lead engineer on the project. “Usually, we go into projects that are routine. But with hydrogen blending, we were all embarking on something we’d never done before.”

What was at stake that evening wasn’t just another technical milestone, but a symbolic leap forward in the journey to decarbonize the grid and a tangible step toward Georgia’s clean energy goals. Truthfully, what was at stake was the answer to those essential human curiosities: Will it work? Can we do it?

Simply put, yes.

The Human Element: How Lauren & Drew’s Partnership Defined Success

Let’s take a step back to understand one of the central relationships in this project: the collaborative partnership between Lauren O’Brien and Drew Uptain. Though they worked as the project managers for the two key companies – Lauren with Mitsubishi Power and Drew with Georgia Power – their synergy was seamless, and their collaboration became the heartbeat of the McDonough hydrogen blending.

“Drew and I clicked from the start,” Lauren recalls, thinking back on the beginning of her career in 2020. It was during this time, while on assignment to McDonough as a field engineer, that she met Drew. “We met during the block 5 Turbine Inspections. Well, that’s how I remember it – he says block 6,” she muses with a smile. “But either way, we learned from each other early on working on the GTs, so by the time hydrogen came around, we already knew how the other worked.”

“They fed off each other’s energy so well,” agrees Chaya Springer, Director, Project Management Office for Power Generation Services. “You’d never think they worked for different companies.”

That chemistry proved essential. Hydrogen blending required not just technical expertise, but constant coordination across utilities, vendors, regulators – even the weather. Lauren and Drew’s ability to anticipate each other’s moves and communicate clearly helped the team stay agile through every twist and turn – of which, of course, there were many.

But the trick was that in this case, the tension that comes along any “first of its kind” project wasn’t adversarial – it was collaborative. “A lot of times on projects, on site, it’s us versus them,” Drew admits. “But here, it felt like us – all of us, as one – against the project. That made all the difference.”

“They just led the project together, as a team. It was okay to speak up. It was okay to have opinions. You could have conversations with either one of them,” Chaya adds, explaining the environment that bore such a successful outcome.

The 50% hydrogen blending milestone represents a bridge between the realities of today’s infrastructure and the needs of tomorrow’s net-zero future. And at Plant McDonough, that bridge was built not just with innovation, but with trust, teamwork, and grit.

“Most people outside of power had no idea what blending natural gas and hydrogen even meant,” says Lauren. “But it’s a big deal. It’s not just about hitting a number – it’s about proving what’s possible.”

Overcoming Misconceptions: Demystifying Hydrogen and Natural Gas

Lauren’s right – most people outside of power don’t know what it means to blend natural gas and hydrogen. Hydrogen blending may sound niche, but its implications are vast for utilities, power producers, and therefore, power consumers (i.e.: you, reader). Simply put, the process is exactly what it sounds like – substituting a portion of natural gas with hydrogen in a gas turbine to reduce carbon emissions while leveraging existing infrastructure.  

“There’s a lot of misunderstanding about power plants,” Lauren explains. “People see the big stacks and think they’re polluting, when half the time those clouds are steam. Or they assume natural gas automatically means we’re just damaging the planet and there’s no benefit, which isn’t the whole story.” 

Natural gas plays a critical role in stabilizing the grid as renewables, batteries, and other technologies scale up. Hydrogen-capable gas turbines like those pioneered by Mitsubishi Power at Plant McDonough offer a way to decarbonize that role without sacrificing reliability or affordability to the off-taker.  

“When I told people about hydrogen blending, most didn’t get why it mattered,” Lauren says. “They thought we were just supposed to go straight to solar and wind. They weren’t seeing the bigger picture.” 

That bigger picture includes the reality that with power demand up – and not on a steady curve, but in most cases, on an exponential jump – capacity constraints across the globe are going to be a challenge for the power sector in the coming years. But at the end of the day, people need a solution that can provide power today while not taking the eye off decarbonization goals for the future. 

Technical Collaboration: Milestones and the 50% Blending Achievement

Back in the control room on that summer evening, the team faced its biggest test yet: achieving a 50% (by volume) hydrogen blend on a G to GAC converted turbine. Last year, the existing gas turbine at Plant McDonough was converted from steam-cooled to air-cooled. The conversion included J series combustion technology with proven high hydrogen co-firing capability, providing faster startup times and increasing turn down capability and decreased maintenance expenses.

“It was our biggest test, and everything was on the line,” Drew says, slowly, emphatically. “But we did it. Trial and error, weather delays, you name it, after a wiring fix, it worked. That was our 50% moment.”

“That moment” was the largest test on an advanced class gas turbine in the world. The demonstration validated 50% hydrogen fuel blending at base load and partial load conditions on an advanced-class gas turbine, resulting in a 22% reduction in CO₂ emissions compared to 100% natural gas.

For Lauren, the project was also a personal growth journey. “Coming from a field engineer role, I had to learn auxiliary systems, financial tracking, and even how to adapt my communication style,” she says happily. “This project stretched me in every way.”

But having Drew as a trusted partner made that growth possible. “It’s like he said – we operated as one team,” she says. “That made all the difference.”

Drew adds to that, explaining, “Professionally, I’ve learned you can’t work in silos. The future is about relationships and collaboration across the industry.”

The Future of Energy Is Collaborative, Innovative, and American-Made

As Drew alludes to, the 50% hydrogen blending demonstration proved that the future of energy is collaborative, innovative, and deeply human. The implications of its success also represent a win for American manufacturing. A collaborative effort between Mitsubishi Power and Georgia Power, Plant McDonough-Atkinson leverages gas turbines assembled in America to provide power to Georgians, powering Georgian homes, hospitals, schools, and livelihoods.

With any luck, and with a lot of hard work, stories like this one will emerge across the United States in the years to come. With manufacturing or repairs facilities in Savannah, Houston, and Orlando, Mitsubishi Power knows that while the journey to decarbonization is a global effort, a focus on American livelihoods is where we can directly impact that journey.

Lauren says it best: “It’s about believing in the purpose behind what we’re doing.”

And that purpose is clear: delivering reliable, cleaner power for today, with a path to clean tomorrow.