Fall 2026 recap: 24 scheduled refueling outages, 17 forced, 738 planned reactor-days

[Core Content]

The Fall 2026 refueling season concluded with 24 scheduled outages completed, matching the total number of outages originally planned by utilities. These projects resulted in 747 combined outage days, averaging 31.1 days per outage, which aligns closely with the seasonal average of 30.8 days per outage projected in utility schedules.

This season ranks 15 of 27 when compared to historical fall outage counts since 1999, falling below the historical average of 25.5 scheduled refueling outages. Schedule adherence remained high, with 23 of 24 outages starting as expected. North Anna 2 recorded the longest scheduled outage at 69 days, while Watts Bar 2 completed the shortest at 7 days. Looking ahead, 30 refueling outages are already scheduled for the Spring 2027 window, totaling 1129 planned reactor-days.

Fall 2026 had 24 scheduled refueling outages on utility schedules across the U.S. fleet, totaling 738 reactor-days of planned offline time (average 30.8 days per outage).

All 24 have since wrapped, logging 747 reactor-days of actual offline time (average 31.1 days each).

That works out to roughly 16.9 million MWh of generation offline for the season, enough to power about 1.6 million homes for a year.

Longest completed refueling outage: North Anna 2 (69 days). Shortest: Watts Bar 2 (7 days).

North Anna 2: the season's longest refueling outage at 69 days.

17 unscheduled (forced) outages also occurred this season, of which 8 were scrams (brief reactor trips), adding 109 reactor-days offline.

Historical context: this season's 24 scheduled outages were fewer than the 27-year fall average (25.5/season). The U.S. fleet has shrunk too: this fall's 24 refuels came from about 94 reactors operating today, versus the 33-outage record in 2006 when more units were online. Completed outages averaged 31.1 days, shorter than the long-run fall of 38.3 days. View the full historical statistics on NukeWorker.

Utility schedule reliability: of 24 outages with a utility-published start date, 23 (96%) began within three days of it. 1 started earlier than the utilities had scheduled, 0 ran later. (This measures the utilities' own published dates, not NukeWorker's projections.)

Looking ahead to Spring 2027: 30 refueling outages currently scheduled, totaling 1,129 reactor-days of planned offline time.

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