Home / Power plants / Wyoming / Pilot Butte

Pilot Butte

Hydro power plant · Fremont County, Wyoming · not currently in service

Nameplate capacity
1.6 MW
Rank in Wyoming
#69
of 71 plants
In service since
1929
February 1929

Details

Primary fuel
Hydro
Technology
Conventional Hydroelectric
Operator
U S Bureau of Reclamation
County
Fremont County
Generating units
2
Share of state capacity
0.01%
Rank among hydro plants in Wyoming
#15 of 16
EIA plant code
674

Generating units

Individual generating units at Pilot Butte
UnitTechnologyNameplateSummerOnlineStatus
1Conventional Hydroelectric0.8 MW0.8 MW2025Out of service and NOT expected to return to service in next calendar year
2Conventional Hydroelectric0.8 MW0.8 MW1929Out of service and NOT expected to return to service in next calendar year

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 Wyoming

Old FaithfulOther2.0 MW
Swift CreekHydro1.7 MW
Strawberry CreekHydro1.5 MW
Elk Basin Gasoline PlantNatural gas1.0 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 1.6 MW solar plant and a 1.6 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 Wyoming power plants · What Wyoming actually generates