US nuclear outages ease to 18,098 MW on Oct 26, 2026 as Vogtle unit returns
US nuclear capacity offline fell to 18,098 megawatts (MW) on Oct 26, 2026, from a peak of 19,936 MW on Oct 21, as a Vogtle reactor came back. The autumn refuelling season looks past its peak.
A data update from FactIQ, written from Energy Information Administration figures. What is FactIQ?
Key figures
- US nuclear capacity offline, Oct 26, 2026
- 18,098 MWdown from a peak of 19,936 MW on Oct 212026-09-092026-10-26U.S. Daily Nuclear Capacity Outage
- Vogtle nuclear plant capacity offline, Oct 26, 2026
- 23 MWdown from 1,129 MW on Oct 232026-09-092026-10-26Daily Nuclear Generating Capacity Outage at Vogtle
- Palisades nuclear plant capacity offline, Oct 26, 2026
- 815.6 MWequal to its full capacity; the plant is producing no power2026-09-092026-10-26Daily Nuclear Generating Capacity Outage at Palisades
- Total US nuclear generating capacity
- 100,057 MWup from 97,621 MW before Oct 1 after a capacity-rating update2026-09-092026-10-26U.S. Nuclear Power Capacity
Outages are falling but remain typical of autumn refuelling
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) tracks how much nuclear generating capacity is offline each day. More capacity offline means less nuclear power and more need for other fuels. Outages totalled 18,098 megawatts (MW) on Oct 26. The peak was 19,936 MW on Oct 21, and the low since then was 17,963 MW on Oct 25. Roughly 18% of the fleet's 100,057 MW of capacity is offline. That is still far above late-summer levels of about 1.5–3 GW (gigawatts, or thousands of megawatts) in early September. Levels like this are normal during the autumn refuelling season.Vogtle and Susquehanna drove the decline
- Vogtle: one unit had 1,152 MW offline from mid-October. Its outage fell to 1,129 MW on Oct 23, 634 MW on Oct 24, 242 MW on Oct 25 and 23 MW on Oct 26.
- PPL Susquehanna has no capacity offline now. It had 1,247 MW out through Oct 14.
- Browns Ferry has had no capacity offline since Oct 15.
Palisades is still producing no power, and Palo Verde's outage is unchanged
The outage at Palisades equals its full 815.6 MW capacity. This means the restarted Michigan unit is still not producing power. Palo Verde still has 1,333 MW offline, a figure that has not changed all month.A capacity-rating update raised total US capacity on Oct 1
Total U.S. nuclear capacity rose on Oct 1 from 97,621 MW to 100,057 MW. Palisades' rating rose from 768.5 to 815.6 MW. The size and timing point to a routine update of capacity ratings, not to new reactors coming online.Source: Energy Information Administration. See all EIA data in FactIQ.
About FactIQ and these updates
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- How an update is made. When Energy Information Administration publishes new figures, FactIQ loads them and an AI model writes a short summary of what changed. Before it is published, code checks that every number in the summary matches FactIQ's record of the release, and a second review checks that nothing is overstated. Values that look like errors in the source data are left out.
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More from EIA
- US wind power reaches 89,710 MWh an hour on Oct 24 as gas-fired generation fallsOctober 24, 2026
- US nuclear outages on Oct 23, 2026 stay near autumn high at 19,425 MWOctober 23, 2026
- US gas-fired power jumps about 13% in a day as wind output drops, Oct 21–22October 23, 2026
- US nuclear outages, Oct 22, 2026: 19.73% of capacity offline in refueling seasonOctober 22, 2026