US Nuclear Outage Season: Spring 2014 Report

Insight 10 March 2014

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Report summary

Expectations for the spring 2014 season relative to last year ultimately hinge on the level of forced outages, as these played a pivotal role in available capacity in 2013. Around 39 GW of capacity is expected to refuel this spring compared to around 30-31 GW that refueled during the prior two spring outage seasons. However, last year's nuclear fleet operated at lower output than predicted by scheduled refueling as extended forced outages persisted at a number of plants.

Executive Summary
It’s all about the patterns
- Utilities look to maximize operating times by extending time between outages
- Clinton Power Station adapts to adverse market conditions
- Exact timing of refueling can drift due to forced outages
The maintenance decision

Tables and charts

This report includes 7 images and tables including:

Figure 1: US nuclear historic daily operating capacity (15-day average)
Figure 2: Historical and forecast US nuclear capacity undergoing refueling by season
Henry Hub cash price vs. outages

Henry Hub 3-month strip forward curve vs. outages
Figure 5: Fukushima-related outages have skewed recent outage seasons
Appendix: List of units scheduled to refuel during spring 2014
Figure 3: Fermi forced outages result in a forward-looking shift of refueling