Lower Colorado River Authority - Llano County - ERCOT
Buchanan Dam is LCRA's 54.9 MW, three-unit hydroelectric plant at the head of Texas's Highland Lakes. In service since 1938, the nearly 11,000-foot dam combines generation with water supply and flood control; a $51.1 million rehabilitation completed in 2021 strengthened its floodgates and modernized electrical and remote-hoist systems.
Answers use this researched asset profile with live ERCOT data. Ask about ownership, equipment, project history, or current grid context.
Live ERCOT public data · answers can be wrong, verify against source data or the ISO.
Canonical EIA plant baseline.
plant-3595
BUCHAN_BUCHANG1 · BUCHAN_BUCHANG2
Mapped infrastructure geometry associated with this asset.
Similar plants ranked by technology, capacity, and distance.
Operating generator records and technology attributes reported through EIA-860.
| Generator | Capacity | Technology | Operation | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 18.3 MW 18.3 MW summer | Conventional Hydroelectric Water · HY | — | Operating |
| 2 | 18.3 MW 18.3 MW summer | Conventional Hydroelectric Water · HY | — | Operating |
| 3 | 18.3 MW 18.3 MW summer | Conventional Hydroelectric Water · HY | May 1950 | Operating |
Monthly EIA generation history and recent market-resource behavior where linked telemetry is available.
Deterministic links to ERCOT market resources, price records, outage disclosures, queue records, and nearby infrastructure. Candidate joins remain labeled until corroborated.
Source-backed project transactions, agreements, land records, permits, and environmental disclosures. Portfolio and adjacent-project facts remain explicitly scoped.
Parties, market resources, and identifiers tied to this asset, with owner, operator, developer, EPC, compliance provider, and interconnecting entity roles kept separate.
Project milestones and public references behind the asset profile.
The Lower Colorado River Authority was created under state law with authority to store and sell water, generate electricity, prevent floods, and implement reforestation and soil-conservation programs.
Monthly generation is reported through EIA-923. Capacity factor uses the current EIA nameplate capacity and is shown only for complete calendar years.
3 ERCOT market resources · Hydro
Capacity factor is average output vs. this plant's observed peak.
Observed ERCOT settlement prices at BUCHAN_ALL over 364 days (2025-08-28 to 2026-08-27).
The TB2 figure is a price benchmark, not revenue: it values one perfect-foresight cycle per day between the 2 cheapest and 2 dearest hours of each day, gross of round-trip losses, and excludes ancillary services and any physical dispatch constraint. It describes what this node’s price shape was worth over the window — it is not this asset’s realized capture, and no dispatch is assumed or modelled.
| Largest reported plants | Capacity | State | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fayette Power Project | 1,690 MW | TX | |
| Sim Gideon | 623 MW | TX | |
| Lost Pines 1 Power Project | 609 MW | TX | |
| Thomas C Ferguson | 574.6 MW | TX | |
| Winchester Power Park | 242 MW | TX | |
| Timmerman Power Plant | 180 MW | TX | |
| Marshall Ford | 108 MW | TX | |
| Buchanan Dam (TX)Current | 54.9 MW | TX |
Portfolio membership follows the latest EIA-860 reporting entity. It does not imply ultimate ownership.
EIA-860 lists generator 3 with this operating date.
LCRA completed a $51.1 million, more-than-decade-long project that strengthened all 37 floodgates, extended each gate by one foot, upgraded electrical and safety systems, and installed remote-operated hoists. The project also removed and inspected all gate trunnions, replaced them as needed, provided stop logs, and recoated hoist bridges. The work maintained flood-response capability throughout the multi-year rehabilitation.
ERCOT SCED disclosure is delayed, so plant performance windows end at the latest disclosed interval.
Answered from the published record above. Questions whose inputs this profile does not carry are omitted rather than estimated.
Buchanan Dam (TX) has a reported capacity of 54.9 MW. Source: EIA Form 860M.
Buchanan Dam (TX) is a Conventional Hydroelectric facility in Llano County, TX, participating in the ERCOT market.
Buchanan Dam (TX) is in Llano County, TX, inside the ERCOT balancing area.
Buchanan Dam (TX) is operated by Lower Colorado River Authority according to the EIA generator inventory. Reporting membership does not by itself establish ultimate ownership.
Buchanan Dam (TX) reported 17.1 GWh over the twelve months to 2024-12. Figures are net generation as filed to EIA-923.
By capacity, Buchanan Dam (TX) ranks #246 of 1,349 operating plants of the same technology nationally. It ranks #5 of 16 in TX.
Plants within 25 km, nearest first, regardless of technology. Proximity is straight-line distance between mapped plant coordinates; it does not by itself establish a shared point of interconnection.