- Combustion
- Operating
- 10 · 100 · 1,000 MW
Map
- Combustion
- Operating
Colstrip: location. Basemap: Protomaps, © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL.
Colstrip
Power plant · Coal
Key facts
Power plant · Coalran 64% of 2025 Operating- Capacity
- Capacity: sourceEIA-860M · Open licenseMW
- Commissioned
- 1984
- Net generation, 2025
- 9,171,195 MWh
- Grid
- 500 kV, 230 kV to NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT) (NWMT)
- Location
- Rosebud County, Montana
- Operated by
- Talen Montana LLC
Operations
- Net generation, 2025
- 9,171,195
MWh - Fuel burned, 2025
- 99,390,374
MMBtu - Capacity factor, 2025
- 63.5
% - Heat rate, 2025
- 10,837
Btu/kWh
| Year | Net generation (MWh) | Fuel burned (MMBtu) | Capacity factor | Heat rate (Btu/kWh) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (8 of 12 months) | 4,664,406 | 54,091,146 | — | 11,597 |
| 2025 | 9,171,195 | 99,390,374 | 63.5% | 10,837 |
| 2024 | 9,028,457 | 98,297,800 | 62.4% | 10,888 |
| 2023 | 10,820,444 | 116,705,418 | 75.0% | 10,786 |
| 2022 | 10,865,555 | 116,186,394 | 75.3% | 10,693 |
| 2021 | 10,010,332 | 107,073,920 | 69.4% | 10,696 |
| 2020 | 7,935,170 | 87,823,109 | 54.8% | 11,068 |
| 2019 | 13,407,682 | 146,439,418 | 92.9% | 10,922 |
| 2018 | 12,656,682 | 138,475,927 | 87.7% | 10,941 |
| 2017 | 13,337,994 | 144,495,684 | 92.4% | 10,833 |
| 2016 | 13,358,656 | 145,304,909 | 92.3% | 10,877 |
| 2015 | 14,844,275 | 158,589,828 | 102.9% | 10,684 |
| 2014 | 13,729,879 | 147,600,719 | 95.1% | 10,750 |
| 2013 | 12,737,863 | 135,764,306 | 88.3% | 10,658 |
| 2012 | 12,251,003 | 132,297,662 | 84.7% | 10,799 |
| 2011 | 13,025,219 | 139,750,044 | 90.3% | 10,729 |
| 2010 | 16,211,861 | 173,061,086 | — | 10,675 |
| 2009 | 13,154,978 | 142,432,251 | 91.2% | 10,827 |
| 2008 | 16,086,750 | 174,823,028 | — | 10,868 |
| 2007 | 15,840,087 | 170,614,868 | — | 10,771 |
| 2006 | 14,764,749 | 163,235,361 | 102.3% | 11,056 |
| 2005 | 16,240,783 | 176,949,644 | — | 10,895 |
| 2003 | 15,214,950 | 166,241,734 | — | 10,926 |
| 2002 | 13,886,845 | 148,260,553 | 96.2% | 10,676 |
| 2001 | 15,452,158 | 163,152,684 | — | 10,559 |
How these are worked out
Net generation and fuel burned are the monthly figures EIA publishes in its bulk electricity file, from the plant's Form 923 reports; a year is the sum of its months. Capacity factor is a full year's net generation over today's nameplate capacity times the hours in that year (8,784 in a leap year), so a plant uprated or partly retired since reads against its current size; heat rate is fuel burned over net generation, for plants that burn fuel. A year with fewer than twelve months stated has no capacity factor, and a value outside the plausible range is left blank rather than shown. By month, the charts apply the same rules to each month's own hours and fuel.
Sources
3 sourcesSources
- EIA-860M Preliminary Monthly Electric Generator Inventory
- Global Energy Monitor — Global Integrated Power Tracker (unit-level power plants, eight technologies, all statuses)Global Integrated Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, September 2026 release (https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-integrated-power-tracker), CC BY 4.0. Modified by Inframation: TransitionZero-sourced rows removed; statuses and technologies mapped to Inframation's vocabulary; figures aggregated. Copyright © Global Energy Monitor. Global Integrated Power Tracker, September 2026 release. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- EIA Open Data bulk file — Electricity (ELEC.zip; monthly plant net generation and fuel consumption since 2001)Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electricity bulk data (Form EIA-923 monthly plant series)