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Thermalito

Hydro power plant · Butte County, California

Nameplate capacity
115 MW
Rank in California
#243
of 1,897 plants
In service since
1968
February 1968

Details

Primary fuel
Hydro
Technology
Conventional Hydroelectric
Operator
California Dept. of Water Resources
County
Butte County
Generating units
4
Share of state capacity
0.11%
Rank among hydro plants in California
#35 of 244
EIA plant code
438

Generating units

Individual generating units at Thermalito
UnitTechnologyNameplateSummerOnlineStatus
1Conventional Hydroelectric33 MW33 MW1968Operating
2Hydroelectric Pumped Storage28 MW28 MW1968Operating
3Hydroelectric Pumped Storage28 MW28 MW1968Operating
4Hydroelectric Pumped Storage28 MW28 MW1968Operating

Nameplate is the maximum rated output; summer capacity is what the unit can reliably deliver on a hot day, which is typically lower.

Similarly sized plants in California

KeswickHydro117 MW
Beaumont BESSBattery storage117 MW
Edwards Sanborn E5Solar115 MW
Border Hybrid Energy CenterNatural gas115 MW

About this data

From EIA’s inventory of operable generators, May 2026 release. Capacity is nameplate — the maximum rated output of the equipment, not what the plant actually generates over a year, which depends on how often it runs. A 115 MW solar plant and a 115 MW nuclear plant have the same entry here and produce very different amounts of electricity.

“In service since” is the earliest in-service date among the units still listed, so a site rebuilt around newer equipment can read as younger than the site itself. All California power plants · What California actually generates