Fall 2025 recap: 22 scheduled refueling outages, 38 forced, 647 planned reactor-days

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Completed refueling outages for the fall 2025 season averaged 36.4 days, exceeding the initial utility schedule average of 29.4 days. All 22 scheduled refueling outages reached completion by the end of the recap window, while 38 forced outages occurred during the same period.

The 22 completed refueling outages this season rank 21 out of 26 years when compared to historical fall data since 1999. Schedule adherence data shows 12 of the 22 outages started as expected, with 4 starting early and 6 starting late. Looking ahead, 34 refueling outages are already scheduled for the spring 2026 window, totaling 983 planned reactor-days. Historical averages for fall seasons since 1999 include 25.8 scheduled refueling outages and 38.4 days per outage.

Fall 2025 had 22 scheduled refueling outages on utility schedules across the U.S. fleet, totaling 647 reactor-days of planned offline time (average 29.4 days per outage).

All 22 have since wrapped, logging 801 reactor-days of actual offline time (average 36.4 days each).

That works out to roughly 18.3 million MWh of generation offline for the season, enough to power about 1.7 million homes for a year.

Longest completed refueling outage: Surry 1 (78 days). Shortest: Braidwood 1 (17 days).

Surry 1: the season's longest refueling outage at 78 days.

38 unscheduled (forced) outages also occurred this season, of which 22 were scrams (brief reactor trips), adding 171 reactor-days offline.

Historical context: this season's 22 scheduled outages were fewer than the 26-year fall average (25.8/season). The U.S. fleet has shrunk too: this fall's 22 refuels came from about 94 reactors operating today, versus the 33-outage record in 2006 when more units were online. Completed outages averaged 36.4 days, shorter than the long-run fall of 38.4 days. View the full historical statistics on NukeWorker.

Utility schedule reliability: of 22 outages with a utility-published start date, 12 (55%) began within three days of it. 4 started earlier than the utilities had scheduled, 6 ran later. (This measures the utilities' own published dates, not NukeWorker's projections.)

Looking ahead to Spring 2026: 34 refueling outages currently scheduled, totaling 983 reactor-days of planned offline time.

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