McGuire

This station is located about 17 miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, on a 32,500-acre lake, created in 1963 by Duke Power for the Cowens Ford Hydroelectric Station. The McGuire units use the lake's water for cooling. McGuire Nuclear Station workers view 40 as an important milestone since McGuire Unit 1 produced its first commercial electricity on Dec. 12, 1981. For the past 40 years, McGuire Nuclear Station employees have been fulfilling the goals set by former Duke Power President William McGuire, “This plant will be a good neighbor. And, we will provide power to the prosperous, progressive Piedmont Carolinas.” In fact, since 1981, the two-unit plant has powered nearly 715,000 homes, with unit 1 alone producing a lifetime net generation of 350 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity. Consider this – in its first full year of operation, McGuire unit 1 produced more than 4 million MWh.