TotalU.S. nuclear plant availability stepped higher early April 6 to 87.82%, up from87.38% on April 5 and still above the 85.00% recorded on the same day in 2015.

Supportingtotal availability was the return of two reactors: NextEra Energy Inc.'s Point Beach 1 in Wisconsin and 's Grand Gulf reactorin Mississippi. Point Beach 1 was warming up at 30% early April 6 after being March 12 for planned seasonalwork and being restarted around April 5. Grand Gulf was reported at 98%, up from74% on April 5, after being scrammedshut March 29 due to a turbine trip.

But asthe refueling and maintenance season approaches its zenith, a total of six reactorsacross the country are expected to shut in the next seven days. Upcoming outages,according to private sources, include: PinnacleWest Capital Corp.'s Palo Verde 1 in Arizona; Southern Co.'s Farley 2 in Alabama; Dominion Resources Inc.'s Millstone 3 in Connecticut; 'sSalem 1 in New Jersey; Exelon Corp.'sNine Mile Point 2 in New York; and DukeEnergy Corp.'s Oconee 3 in South Carolina.

Power production levels and impendingoutage dates are current at the time of publication and are subject to change. Fordetails of U.S. nuclear power plant operations, visit our NuclearStatus and Outage Report.