page_title: Fort St. Vrain Generating Station
section_title: Unique features of the design
hierarchical_section_title: Fort St. Vrain Generating Station / Unique features of the design
context_page_description: Fort Saint Vrain Generating Station is a natural gas powered electricity generating facility located near the town of Platteville in northern Colorado in the United States. It currently has a capacity of just under 1000MW and is owned and operated by Xcel Energy, the successor to the plant's founder, the Public Service Company of Colorado. It went online in this form in 1996.
  The facility was built originally as a nuclear power plant. It operated as a nuclear generating power plant from 1979 until 1989.
context_section_description: The Fort St. Vrain HTGR was substantially more efficient than modern light water reactors, reaching a thermal efficiency of 39-40%, excellent for a steam-cycle power plant.  Operation of the HTGR design could be readily attenuated to follow the electrical power demand load, rather than be required to generate its nameplate power all the time. The reactor was also comparatively fuel efficient, with a maximum burn up of 90,000 MW days thermal (compared to Light Water Reactors with burn ups of 10,000 - 40,concept for the future. However, the problems that occurred leading to its debugging led to its early demise.
caption: Refueling floor at Fort St. Vrain Generating Station
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