Atucha nuclear power plant
Atucha nuclear power plant is a nuclear power station in Argentina with 2 operating units totalling 1,107 MW gross. The site has 7 units on record in total.
Units
| Unit | Status | Type | Model | Gross MW | Online |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 1 | PHWR | PHWR KWU | 362 | 1974 | |
| Unit 2 | PHWR | PHWR KWU | 745 | 2016 | |
| Unit 3 | Shelved | PWR | Hualong One | 1,150 | - |
| Unit SMR 1 | Announced | - | ACR-300 | 300 | 2030 |
| Unit SMR 2 | Announced | - | ACR-300 | 300 | - |
| Unit SMR 3 | Announced | - | ACR-300 | 300 | - |
| Unit SMR 4 | Announced | - | ACR-300 | 300 | - |
Atucha nuclear power plant in context
By gross operating capacity Atucha nuclear power plant is the 1st largest of 2 operating nuclear sites in Argentina, holding 63% of the country's operating capacity, and ranks 138th of 172 worldwide.
Its operating units started up between 1974 and 2016; the median unit is 31.0 years old, younger than the median of 42.0 in Argentina.
The 2 units with both construction and grid dates on record took 5.8 to 32.9 years (median 19.4) from construction start to grid connection; the median across all reactors connected in the 2010s is 5.9 years.
No other nuclear site with an exact position in this dataset lies within 300 km.
2 operating units are rated differently now from their design net capacities: Unit 1 +6.6% and Unit 2 +0.1%.
Build time by unit
| Unit | Construction start | Grid connection | Years | Fleet median, same decade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 1 | 1968 | 1974 | 5.8 | 5.4 (1970s) |
| Unit 2 | 1981 | 2014 | 32.9 | 5.9 (2010s) |
How these are worked out: ranks use gross operating capacity; ages count from the start-up year on record, as on the age page; build times run from construction start to grid connection, as on the build-times page; ratings are the tracker's net and design net capacity, as on the uprates page. Distances are straight-line between exact positions, so a site with only an approximate position gets none. A unit missing a date or a rating is left out of the figure that needs it.
Earthquakes nearby
Loading the latest USGS check…
| Time (UTC) | Mag | Depth | Epicentre | Distance |
|---|
Magnitude 4.0 and above within 200 km of Atucha nuclear power plant's listed coordinates, past 30 days. This is distance, not shaking: it says nothing about damage or any change in operation. Every plant.
| Location | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | -33.9670, -59.2095 |
| Elevation | about 25 mabove sea level |
| Setting | About 70 km from the sea |
| Region | Latin America and the Caribbean |
| Units by status | Operating: 2 Shelved: 1 Announced: 4 |
Elevation is read at the listed coordinates from a 30 m terrain model (SRTM 30 m). Two independent models differ by a median of 6 m across our plants and by up to about 40 m on steep or coastal ground, and a point on a shoreline can read as sea level. Distance to the water is measured to a generalised 1:10 million coastline, so a few kilometres or less is not resolved. This is context, not a design-basis or flood-risk figure.
| Owners | Nucleoelectrica Argentina SA China National Nuclear Corp |
|---|---|
| Operators | Nucleoelectrica Argentina |
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Sources
- Global Nuclear Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, August 2026 release , CC BY 4.0 · retrieved 2026-09-06
- GEM.wiki entry (further reading) , CC BY-SA 4.0, linked, not quoted
How these sources are used, including the corrections applied on top of them and what is deliberately left blank · download the underlying data