Preview of the US nuclear outage season: Fall 2014

The fall 2014 nuclear outage season is expected to be comparably lighter than the spring season as only 22 GW are expected to refuel. With the assumption that non-refueling forced outages and derates remain at historical norms, the total amount of unavailable nuclear capacity during the fall season's peak should be lower by 3 GW than this past spring. However, as we have observed through the summer, forced outages have remained lower than average with the fleet operating near full capacity.