page_title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant
hierarchical_section_title: Diablo Canyon Power Plant
caption_attribution_description: English: Diablo Canyon Family Open House
context_page_description: The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is an electricity-generating nuclear power plant near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California. Since the permanent shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 2013, Diablo Canyon is the only operational nuclear plant left in the state. The plant has two Westinghouse-designed 4-loop pressurized-water nuclear reactors operated by Pacific Gas & Electric.
  The facility was the subject of controversy and protests, both during its construction and operations, including nearly two thousand civil disobedience arrests in a two-week period in 1981.
  Diablo Canyon Power Plant is on approximately 900 acres of land located just west of Avila Beach, California. The power-producing portion of the plant occupies around 12 acres. Together, the twin 1100 MWe reactors produce about 18,000 GW·h of electricity annually, supplying the electrical needs of more than 3 million people.
context_section_description: The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is an electricity-generating nuclear power plant near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California.  Since the permanent shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 2013, Diablo Canyon is the only operational nuclear plant left in the state. The plant has two Westinghouse-designed 4-loop pressurized-water nuclear reactors operated by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).
  The facility was the subject of controversy and protests, both during its construction and operations, including nearly two thousand civil disobedience arrests in a two-week period in 1981.
  Diablo Canyon Power Plant is on approximately 900 acres (360 ha) of land located just west of Avila Beach, California. The power-producing portion of the plant occupies around 12 acres (4.9 ha). Together, the twin 1100 MWe reactors produce about 18,000 GW·h of electricity annually (8.6% of total California generation and 23% of carbon-free generation),  supplying the electrical needs of more than 3 million people. Though it was built less than a mile from the Shoreline fault line, which was not known to exist at the time of construction, and is located less than three miles from the Hosgri fault, a 2016 NRC probabilistic risk assessment of the plant, taking into account seismic risk, estimated the frequency of core damage at one instance per 7.6 million reactor years.
  The plant is located in Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region IV.
  In November 2009, PG&E applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for 20-year license renewals for both reactors. In June 2016, PG&E announced that it plans to close the two Diablo Canyon reactors in 2024 and 2025. Full decommissioning of the plant is estimated to take decades and cost nearly 4 billion dollars.
caption: Diablo Canyon Power Plant, 2008. The light beige domes are the containment structures for Unit 1 and 2 reactors. The reddish-brown building is the turbine building where electricity is generated and sent to the grid. To the left is the Administration Building (black and white stripes).
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