Encina Power Station
For sixty-four years, the Encina Power Station's four hundred-foot smokestack rose above the Carlsbad coastline — visible from Interstate 5, from the hills inland, from the ocean offshore. It was not beautiful. Natural gas plants rarely are. But it was present in a way that shaped the landscape's identity: the Encina stack was a reference point, a landmark, a thing that defined where you were on the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego. When the plant retired on December 11, 2018, after six decades of generating electricity from Agua Hedionda Lagoon's cooling water and the California grid's demand, the stack did not immediately come down. It stood through the years of decommissioning planning, visible and silent, while decisions were made about what the site would become.
Why the Lagoon Mattered
Encina was built in 1954 on the shore of Agua Hedionda Lagoon, which provided the cooling water the plant required. Steam power plants of the era needed large volumes of water to condense steam back into liquid after it had passed through the turbines — water that was pulled from a source, heated slightly, and returned. Agua Hedionda was the source. The arrangement had an important side effect: keeping the lagoon's inlet to the Pacific open required dredging, which Encina's operators performed every two to four years to maintain the water flow their operations depended on. Without the plant, the lagoon would have gradually silted shut. The dredging was industrial maintenance, not conservation. Its effect was conservation anyway.
The Desalination Plant
In 2015, while Encina was still operating, a $300 million desalination plant opened on the adjacent property. The Claude 'Bud' Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, operated by Poseidon Water, draws seawater from the Pacific, processes it through reverse osmosis membranes, and produces approximately 50 million gallons of drinking water per day — enough to supply about 10 percent of San Diego County's needs. The plant took over the lagoon dredging responsibility when Encina closed, maintaining the tidal connection that the power station had maintained for six decades before it. The transition was less a hand-off than a continuation: the industrial relationship with Agua Hedionda Lagoon persisted, with different machinery and a different purpose.
After the Plant
NRG Energy, which owned Encina at its retirement, replaced it with the Carlsbad Energy Center — a 527-megawatt natural gas peaking plant on the same site, using five simple-cycle combustion turbines rather than the older steam generation Encina relied on. The new plant is smaller in physical footprint and significantly cleaner in emissions, but it continues the industrial presence on Agua Hedionda's northern shore that has defined the lagoon's character since the mid-twentieth century. The old Encina smokestack — a landmark for almost fifty years — was demolished in mid-2021, and the full demolition of the Encina Power Station complex was completed in August 2022, erasing the plant's physical presence from the Carlsbad skyline.
From the Air
The former Encina Power Station site is located at approximately 33.1364°N, 117.337°W on the northern shore of Agua Hedionda Lagoon in Carlsbad. The 400-foot smokestack that was a landmark for decades was demolished in 2021; the Carlsbad Energy Center (replacement plant) and the Claude 'Bud' Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant occupy the site. Recommended viewing altitude 2,000–5,000 ft AGL. Nearby airports: KOKB (Oceanside Municipal, ~6 nm north), KSEE (Gillespie Field, ~18 nm southeast).