Nuclear power plant in Veracruz, Mexico. Approximate location 19.7208, -96.4064.
NuclearVeracruzMexicoBWR-5boiling water reactor
Laguna Verde is a 1,608 MW nuclear power station in Veracruz, Mexico. It is operated by CFE. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 3.6 million homes (estimated). It ranks #7 of 366 Mexico power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1990, it is around 36 years old — long-established. As a non-combustion source, it has no direct CO₂ emissions from generation. In context, nuclear supplies about 2.8% of Mexico's electricity; the national grid averages 474 gCO₂/kWh (25.9% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id MEX0001769.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 (location L100000500160); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
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.
Operated by CFE. All plants by this company →
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 19.7°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
This site has effectively no heating season (tropical/equatorial climate), so winter heat loss is not the driver here. The thermal concern shifts to year-round process heat and humidity/heat-driven corrosion of hot equipment.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
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.
Mexico has 1 nuclear power plant in this dataset, together about 1,608 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 19.7208, -96.4064 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Laguna Verde is a 1,608 MW source-record nuclear power plant in Veracruz, Mexico, commissioned in 1990.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 3,622,134 homes (estimated).
Laguna Verde is operated by CFE.
