Nuclear Power

Clean, emission-free power for 30 years

The Palo Verde Generating Station, located in Arizona, has provided clean, safe, reliable energy to PNM customers for 30 years. It is the largest power producer of any kind in the nation.

Palo Verde is the largest nuclear power plant in the U.S., located near Phoenix, Arizona. Palo Verde is licensed and routinely inspected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It is a three-unit, 3,810 MW generating station operated by Arizona Public Service Company that serves more than one million homes in the Southwest.

In 2020, PNM announced that it will return the 114 MW of leased capacity under both our Palo Verde Unit 1 and Unit 2 leases upon expiration of the leases in January 2023 (104 MW) and 2024 (10 MW), which will allow PNM to continue our energy transition, provide cost savings for PNM customers, enhance portfolio flexibility and maintain adequacy and reliability of the PNM system. 

Palo Verde generates more than 32 million megawatt hours annually, which is enough to power four million people's homes.

Since beginning operation, power generation at Palo Verde has offset the emission of more than 484 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking 84 million cars off the road.

Palo Verde emits no carbon dioxide in the generation process. The plant generates spent nuclear fuel that is stored in an onsite fuel pool until it can be transferred to dry storage casks inside an NRC licensed, on-site storage facility. This facility may be expanded to include all required casks for nuclear fuel used through Palo Verde's NRC Operating License duration of 2047.

Palo Verde is the only nuclear energy facility in the world that uses treated sewage effluent for cooling water. The sewage effluent water is produced from the metropolitan Phoenix area. The wastewater is treated again at the plant's water reclamation facility and then stored in an 80-acre reservoir for use in the plant's nine cooling towers. More than 20 billion gallons of water are recycled each year.