Monticello Nuclear Power Plant

Monticello Nuclear Power Plant

Minnesota has 3 units located at 2 sites - Monticello and Prairie Island (two Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactors. These plants are owned by Xcel Energy and operated by NMC, the Nuclear Management Company.

Monticello is a single unit of the General Electric Boiling Water Reactor BWR-3 design rated at 570 MWe. Monticello was a turn-key plant that reached initial criticality in 1970 and achieved commercial status in 1971. The plant has the inverted light bulb with torus design.

The plant's control room is operated by 2 licensed reactor operator operators and a shift supervisor licensed as senior reactor operator. Outside the control room 4 non-licensed personnel perform operations as water demineralization, equipment testing (e.g. diesel generators), chemistry testing, and equipment inspections.

In the photo, the Reactor Building is the tallest building; the Turbine Building, Emergency Filtration Building, and Screenhouse are to the left. The tall stack to the right is used to exhaust gases from the offgas system, which controls the discharges from the plant's air ejector system.

Specifics on various plant systems including drawings are available in the NRC plant information book.

The following photos and graphics are representative of the Monticello plant: For additional photos and graphics typical of BWR facilities, see the page - inside and outside the BWR plant.

Reactor Building graphic	Reactor Building during operation	Torus (85K)	Control rod drive actuators (69K)

Substation	Reactor Head Lift	HPCI Turbine-drive Pump	Turbine Hall with Shielding