Fermi 2 trips offline, unscheduled outage underway

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Fermi 2, Monroe, Michigan.

Fermi 2 began a forced short unscheduled outage on 2026-07-04, ending a 44-day unscheduled-outage-free streak. This event marks the second forced outage for the unit in 2026, following zero forced outages during 2025. The 1,141-MW General Electric BWR/4 is currently the only unit in the fleet in an unscheduled outage.

MONROE, MI. Fermi 2 dropped offline on Jul 4, 2026, beginning an unscheduled outage. The NRC has not yet issued an event notification for this trip; a follow-up reply will be posted here if one is filed.

This is the second unscheduled outage of 2026 for the unit.

Across the U.S. fleet of 94 commercial reactors, today's combined capacity factor is 98.4% (1 unit in an unscheduled outage), above the 97.8% baseline for this month over the past five years. While the unit is down, that takes about 913,000 homes' worth of generation off the grid.

Fermi 2 is a 1,141-MW General Electric BWR/4 operated by DTE Electric (commercial operation since 1988). Its operating license runs through 2045 (renewed in 2016).

Heading to Monroe, MI for support work? Current per-diem averages $110/night lodging plus $68/day meals (total $178/day), and Unemployment Benefits are $530 weekly. See open nuclear jobs in Michigan on NukeWorker.

View Fermi 2's ratings, history, projections, and current status on NukeWorker. This thread will be updated when the unit returns to service.

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

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Follow-up: the NRC has filed its event notification for the Fermi 2 trip first reported in this thread. The agency classifies it as an automatic reactor trip (docket 05000341).

AUTOMATIC REACTOR SCRAM The following information was provided by the licensee via phone and email: "At approximately 1827 EDT on July 3, 2026, Fermi 2 experienced a lockout of bus `101' resulting in the loss of transformer `64' followed by a momentary loss of both reactor protection system (RPS) bus power sources resulting in a reactor scram. Both level `3' and level `2' isolations were received due to the reactor scram. The scram was non-complicated. "Operations responded and stabilized the plant. Reactor water level is being maintained at normal level. The lowest water level observed was approximately 94.1 inches. Decay heat is being removed by the main steam system to the main condenser using automatic operation of the turbine bypass valve system. All cont...

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

Source: NRC event notification.

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Fermi 2 returned to service on July 11, 2026, following an eight day unscheduled outage caused by a scram. This event marks the second forced outage for the unit in 2026, compared to zero forced outages during the entirety of 2025. The 1,141-MW General Electric BWR/4 has been in commercial operation since 1988.

Fermi 2 returned to service on Jul 11, 2026 after a 8-day unscheduled outage that began on Jul 4, 2026. A multi-day outage in this range typically points to a single equipment fix rather than a major component issue.

NukeWorker's projection had this at about 7 days at outage start; actual duration matched within a day.

The 8-day outage removed roughly 202,000 MWh from the grid, worth approximately $8 million at recent wholesale prices, equivalent to a year's electricity for about 19,000 homes.

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

Want the full picture? Subscribe to the NukeWorker outage schedule for every current and upcoming U.S. nuclear outage.

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