Braidwood 2 completes Spring refuel in 17 days, caps 542-day B2B run

[News Wire]

Braidwood 2 completed its refueling outage in 17 days, finishing two days ahead of the 19-day schedule. This duration is 3.7 days faster than the 20.7-day average of the unit's 18 prior refuels. The 17-day period ranks as the 15th-longest among the 19 tracked refuels for this unit.

17 days outage · 2 days ahead of schedule · tenth B2B run complete · 1,154 MW back online

After 17 days offline for its Spring 2026 refueling outage, Braidwood 2 returned to the grid on May 6, 2026. The outage began on Apr 20, 2026.

The published schedule had it at 19 days (Apr 20, 2026 to May 9, 2026), so the actual ran 2 days shorter than planned.

It also capped a 542-day breaker-to-breaker run (over the 468-day threshold for an 18-month cycle), the unit's tenth qualified B2B run. Going into the refueling, the unit had run for more than 12 years without an unscheduled outage. NukeWorker's predictive model scores 96% on duration accuracy for this unit.

The 17-day outage removed roughly 433,000 MWh from the grid, worth approximately $17 million at recent wholesale prices, equivalent to a year's electricity for about 40,000 homes.

Across the U.S. fleet of 94 commercial reactors, today's combined capacity factor is 91.3% (5 currently in refueling), above the 87.0% baseline for this month over the past five years. At the same site, Braidwood 1 is running at full power. Salem 2, Seabrook 1, Palo Verde 2, and Susquehanna 1 also completed refueling outages within the past week.

Braidwood 2 is a 1,154-MW Westinghouse 4-loop PWR operated by Constellation Nuclear (commercial operation since 1988). At full power, it supplies enough electricity for roughly 923,000 homes. The utility operates 20 other U.S. nuclear units. Its operating license runs through 2047 (renewed in 2016). The unit ran at a 99.9% capacity factor in 2025, among the unit's strongest cycles.

View Braidwood 2's ratings, history, predictions, and current status on NukeWorker.

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Sources: NRC Daily Reactor Power Status reports, utility-published outage schedules, and NukeWorker's predictive model.