Nuclear power plant in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico. Approximate location 18.3652, -67.2687.
NuclearPuerto RicoPuerto RicoSuperheaterboiling water reactor
Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) nuclear power plant is a 18 MW nuclear power plant in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico. It is operated by US DOE and Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority [100%]. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 41k homes (estimated). It ranks #10 of 10 Puerto Rico power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1965, it is around 61 years old — an older, legacy facility. As a non-combustion source, it has no direct CO₂ emissions from generation.
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id GEM_nuc_boilingsuperheaterbo_puert.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and fuel fields on this page are source-record values from the upstream open dataset. They are useful for identification and ranking, but they have not been upgraded to a 2026 registry/GEM-location verified value.
capacity: GEM GNPT; fuel: GEM GNPT
Technically it is described as boiling water reactor. Nuclear plants split uranium to raise steam with no direct CO₂; they run as steady baseload with very high capacity factors and the longest operating lifetimes of any thermal plant.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by US DOE and Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority [100%].
This nuclear plant uses heat from nuclear fission to raise steam for a turbine-generator. It sits in a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 18.4°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Climate zone & typical temperatures: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid).
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #2 largest nuclear power plant of 2 in Puerto Rico by capacity.
Puerto Rico has 2 nuclear power plants in this dataset, together about 601 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 18.3652, -67.2687 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) nuclear power plant is a 18 MW nuclear power plant in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, commissioned in 1965.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 40,546 homes (estimated).
Boiling Nuclear Superheater (BONUS) nuclear power plant is operated by US DOE and Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority [100%].
