Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in context

By gross operating capacity Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is the 16th largest of 54 operating nuclear sites in the United States, holding 2% of the country's operating capacity, and ranks 67th of 172 worldwide.

Its operating units started up between 1985 and 1986; the median unit is 40.5 years old, younger than the median of 45.0 in the United States.

The 2 units with both construction and grid dates on record took 14.9 to 16.6 years (median 15.7) from construction start to grid connection; the median across all reactors connected in the 1980s is 7.3 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 +5.0% and Unit 2 +1.1%.

The tracker lists a planned retirement year, a forecast and not a decision on record, for 2 operating units: Unit 1 (2030) and Unit 2 (2030).

Build time by unit

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.