Dounreay nuclear power plant
Dounreay nuclear power plant is a nuclear site in United Kingdom with 2 units on record. None is currently operating.
Units
Unit by unit
Each unit's rating, type and milestone dates as recorded by the Global Nuclear Power Tracker, with any correction we made to it. A dash or "not disclosed" means the source does not give the value.
Dounreay nuclear power plant DFR Retired
| Reactor type | Fast reactor (FBR) |
|---|---|
| Model | not disclosed |
| Size class | Very small |
| Gross capacity | 15MW |
| Net capacity | 11MW |
| Thermal output | 60MWt |
| Enrichment | 15–20% fissile, or plutonium |
| NSSS vendor | not on record |
| Owner | United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority100% |
| Operator | United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority |
| Construction start | 1 Mar 1955 |
|---|---|
| First criticality | 14 Nov 1959 |
| Grid connection | 1 Oct 1962 |
| Commercial operation | 1 Oct 1962 |
| Permanent shutdown | 1 Mar 1977 |
Dounreay nuclear power plant PFR Retired
| Reactor type | Fast reactor (FBR) |
|---|---|
| Model | not disclosed |
| Size class | Small |
| Gross capacity | 250MW |
| Net capacity | 234MW |
| Thermal output | 600MWt |
| Enrichment | 15–20% fissile, or plutonium |
| NSSS vendor | not on record |
| Owner | United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority100% |
| Operator | United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority |
| Construction start | 1 Jan 1966 |
|---|---|
| First criticality | 1 Mar 1974 |
| Grid connection | 10 Jan 1975 |
| Commercial operation | 1 Jul 1976 |
| Permanent shutdown | 31 Mar 1994 |
Dounreay nuclear power plant in context
The 2 units with both construction and grid dates on record took 7.6 to 9.0 years (median 8.3) from construction start to grid connection; the median across all reactors connected in the 1970s is 5.4 years.
No other nuclear site with an exact position in this dataset lies within 300 km.
Build time by unit
| Unit | Construction start | Grid connection | Years | Fleet median, same decade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit DFR | 1955 | 1962 | 7.6 | 5.0 (1960s) |
| Unit PFR | 1966 | 1975 | 9.0 | 5.4 (1970s) |
How these are worked out: ranks use gross operating capacity; ages count from the start-up year on record, as on the age page; build times run from construction start to grid connection, as on the build-times page; ratings are the tracker's net and design net capacity, as on the uprates page. Distances are straight-line between exact positions, so a site with only an approximate position gets none. A unit missing a date or a rating is left out of the figure that needs it.
| Location | Scotland, United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 58.5805, -3.7374 |
| Elevation | about 20 mabove sea level |
| Setting | On the sea coast, 1.3 km from the water |
| Region | Northern Europe |
| Units by status | Retired: 2 |
Elevation is read at the listed coordinates from a 30 m terrain model (SRTM 30 m). Two independent models differ by a median of 6 m across our plants and by up to about 40 m on steep or coastal ground, and a point on a shoreline can read as sea level. Distance to the water is measured to a generalised 1:10 million coastline, so a few kilometres or less is not resolved. This is context, not a design-basis or flood-risk figure.
| Owners | United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority |
|---|---|
| Operators | United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority |
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Sources
- Global Nuclear Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, August 2026 release , CC BY 4.0 · retrieved 2026-09-06
- GEM.wiki entry (further reading) , CC BY-SA 4.0, linked, not quoted
How these sources are used, including the corrections applied on top of them and what is deliberately left blank · download the underlying data