Surry 2 completes Spring refuel in 57 days, caps 491-day B2B run

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Surry 2 completed its spring refueling outage five days ahead of the original 62-day schedule. The unit returned to service on June 7, 2026, after a 57-day maintenance period.

This duration ranks as the second-longest among the 19 tracked refuels for the 838-MW Westinghouse 3-loop PWR. The outage exceeded the historical average of 38.2 days for the unit by 18.8 days. Virginia Electric and Power operates three other nuclear units in the United States. At the time of this event, the national fleet maintained a 97.2 percent capacity factor with two other units in refueling outages. Surry 2 entered this maintenance period following a 1,033-day streak without an unscheduled outage and a 100 percent capacity factor during the 2025 cycle.

57 days outage · 5 days ahead of schedule · 11th B2B run complete · 838 MW back online

Surry 2 completed its Spring 2026 refueling outage on Jun 7, 2026, returning to service after 57 days. The outage began on Apr 12, 2026.

The published schedule had it at 62 days (Apr 5, 2026 to Jun 6, 2026), so the actual ran 5 days shorter than planned.

It is the unit's second-longest refueling outage of 19 cycles tracked since 1999. It also capped a 491-day breaker-to-breaker run, the unit's 11th qualified B2B run. Going into the refueling, the unit had run for more than 2 years without an unscheduled outage. NukeWorker's duration projection scores 90% accuracy for this unit.

The 57-day outage removed roughly 1.05 million MWh from the grid, worth approximately $42 million at recent wholesale prices, equivalent to a year's electricity for about 98,000 homes.

Across the U.S. fleet of 94 commercial reactors, today's combined capacity factor is 97.2% (1 in unscheduled outages), above the 95.3% baseline for this month over the past five years. At the same site, Surry 1 is running at full power. Palisades and Saint Lucie 2 also completed refueling outages within the past week.

Surry 2 is an 838-MW Westinghouse 3-loop PWR operated by Virginia Electric & Power (commercial operation since 1973). At full power, it supplies enough electricity for roughly 670,000 homes. The utility operates 3 other U.S. nuclear units. Its operating license runs through 2053 (renewed in 2021). The unit ran at a 100.0% capacity factor in 2025, among the unit's strongest cycles.

View Surry 2's ratings, history, projections, and current status on NukeWorker.

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