Total U.S. nuclear plant availability dropped to 77.82% by early April 10, down from 80.61% on April 7, and remains well below the 86.29% reported on the same day in 2016.

A handful of outages and reductions cut total production.

As expected, Pinnacle West Capital Corp. shut its Palo Verde 2 in Arizona, SCANA Corp. idled its V.C. Summer plant in South Carolina and Entergy Corp. shut its Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, with all three units beginning planned refueling outages.

In addition, Exelon Corp.'s FitzPatrick plant in New York and Southern Co.'s Edwin I Hatch 1 in Georgia saw large cuts to production. The FitzPatrick plant, which was operating at full power through early April 8, was reported at just 17% on April 9 and at 13% on April 10. The Hatch unit, which was operating at 97% power April 7, was taken offline by early April 8 but has since reconnected with the grid and was running at 40% early April 10.

Partially offsetting the decreased production was returning supply from other units. Talen Energy Corp restarted its Susquehanna 2 in Pennsylvania, ramping the unit to 35% by early April 10, and Duke Energy Corp.'s Robinson 2 in South Carolina was at 82% by early April 10, up from just 7% ahead of the weekend.

In addition, Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry 3 in Alabama was operating at full power early April 10, up from 90% on April 7, and FirstEnergy Corp.'s Perry 1 in Ohio was pegged at 100% early April 10, up from 80% power April 7.

For details of U.S. nuclear power plant operations, visit our Nuclear Availability and Status and Outage pages.