Dresden Generating Station
Dresden Generating Station (also known as Dresden Nuclear Power Plant or Dresden Nuclear Power Station) is the first privately financed nuclear power plant built in the United States. Dresden 1 was activated in 1960 and retired in 1978. Operating since 1970 are Dresden units 2 and 3, two General Electric BWR-3 boiling water reactors. Dresden Station is located on a 953-acre (386 ha) site in Grundy County, Illinois, at the head of the Illinois River, near the city of Morris. It is immediately northeast of the Morris Operation—the only de facto high-level radioactive waste storage site in the United States. It serves Chicago and the northern quarter of the state of Illinois, capable of producing 867 megawatts of electricity from each of its two reactors, enough to power over one million average American homes.
| Dresden Generating Station | |
|---|---|
Exterior view of Dresden Station circa 1971 | |
| Country | United States |
| Location | Goose Lake Township, Grundy County, near Morris, Illinois |
| Coordinates | 41°23′23″N 88°16′5″W |
| Status | Operational |
| Construction began | Unit 1: May 1, 1956 Unit 2: January 10, 1966 Unit 3: October 14, 1966 |
| Commission date | Unit 1: July 4, 1960 Unit 2: June 9, 1970 Unit 3: November 16, 1971 |
| Decommission date | Unit 1: October 31, 1978 |
| Construction cost | Unit 1: $423 million (2010 USD) or $557 million in 2022 dollars Unit 2: $856 million (2010 USD) or $1.13 billion in 2022 dollars Unit 3: $828 million (2010 USD) or $1.09 billion in 2022 dollars |
| Owner(s) | Constellation Energy |
| Operator(s) | Constellation Energy |
| Nuclear power station | |
| Reactor type | BWR |
| Reactor supplier | General Electric |
| Cooling towers | 4 × Mechanical Draft (supplemental only) |
| Cooling source | Direct open-cycle mode: Closed-cycle mode: Indirect open-cycle mode: |
| Thermal capacity | 1 × 700 MWth (decommissioned) 2 × 2957 MWth |
| Power generation | |
| Units operational | 1 × 902 MW 1 × 895 MW |
| Make and model | Unit 1: BWR-1 (Mark 1) Units 2–3: BWR-3 (Mark 1) |
| Units decommissioned | 1 × 197 MW |
| Nameplate capacity | 1797 MW |
| Capacity factor | 98.13% (2017) 73.30% (lifetime, excluding Unit 1) |
| Annual net output | 15,447 GWh (2017) |
| External links | |
| Website | Dresden Generating Station |
| Commons | Related media on Commons |
In 2004, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the operating licenses for both reactors, extending them from forty years to sixty.