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Townsend Hydro

Hydro power plant · Beaver County, Pennsylvania

Nameplate capacity
5.2 MW
Rank in Pennsylvania
#201
of 273 plants
In service since
1987
October 1987

Details

Primary fuel
Hydro
Technology
Conventional Hydroelectric
Operator
Beaver Falls Municipal Auth
County
Beaver County
Generating units
2
Share of state capacity
0.01%
Rank among hydro plants in Pennsylvania
#17 of 19
EIA plant code
10285

Generating units

Individual generating units at Townsend Hydro
UnitTechnologyNameplateSummerOnlineStatus
GEN1Conventional Hydroelectric2.6 MW2.1 MW1987Operating
GEN2Conventional Hydroelectric2.6 MW2.1 MW1987Operating

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 Pennsylvania

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 5.2 MW solar plant and a 5.2 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 Pennsylvania power plants · What Pennsylvania actually generates