Joint ownership reduces risk by sharing construction and operation costs across multiple entities. A joint venture spreads the cost and risk across entities while allowing them to benefit from capacity portfolio diversity and the economies of scale that large generation assets provide. Complementary expertise from different entities can also potentially increase development and operational efficiency.
In 2019, 58 nuclear power plants with a total of 96 nuclear reactors were operating in the US. The largest US nuclear power plant, Palo Verde in Arizona, has seven joint owners. These owners include utilities from Arizona, California, Texas, and New Mexico. The ownership percentages in Palo Verde range from 29% to 6%.
The only nuclear reactors under construction in the US are Units 3 and 4 at Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. Once completed, Vogtle will be the largest nuclear power plant in the country. Vogtle is jointly owned by four entities: Georgia Power (46% ownership), Oglethorpe Power (30%), the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (23%), and Dalton Utilities (2%).
Pumped-storage hydropower and conventional hydropower are technologies that are similar to one another, but they have very different ownership profiles. Only 2% of conventional hydropower capacity was jointly owned in 2019, compared with 34% for pumped storage. Almost 64% of US conventional hydroelectric capacity is owned by a single federal, state, or municipal government. Another 19% is owned by a single electric utility.
Most conventional hydroelectric plants were built between 1950 and 1980, when hydropower project funding mainly came from the federal government. Conversely, most pumped storage became operational in the 1970s and 1980s when the industry and markets supported investors constructing large capital projects. The two largest pumped-storage plants, Bath County (3 GW) and Ludington (2.3 GW), which together represent 22% of total US pumped-storage capacity, are jointly owned.
