Catawba 2 - Status & History

Comprehensive reactor performance metrics, cycle analysis, and historical outage data.

Reactor Status Timeline

Online NRC data, Mon to Fri ? Actual daily reactor status from NRC reports (Mon to Fri), the current state, and what is coming: the utility's published Scheduled outage plus, for subscribers, NukeWorker's model Projection. Colored by status. How far ahead you can see depends on your plan.
Aug2025SepOctNovDecJan2026FebMarAprMayJunJulAugOnline: Jul 11, 2025 to Aug 26, 2025Coastdown: Aug 27, 2025Online: Aug 28, 2025 to Aug 29, 2025Coastdown: Aug 30, 2025 to Sep 2, 2025Refueling Outage: Sep 3, 2025 to Oct 4, 2025Power Ascension: Oct 5, 2025 to Oct 7, 2025Online: Oct 8, 2025 to Oct 9, 2025Power Ascension: Oct 10, 2025 to Oct 12, 2025Online: Oct 13, 2025 to Mar 30, 2026Forced Outage: Mar 31, 2026 to Apr 14, 2026Power Ascension: Apr 15, 2026 to Apr 16, 2026Online: Apr 17, 2026 to Jul 11, 2026Today
OnlineCoastdownPower AscensionRefueling OutageForced Outage
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Composite Operational Excellence Score (0-100) — average percentile rank across 7 dimensions in three sub-scores: Reliability (capacity factor, forced outage days, B2B avg streak), Efficiency (fuel utilization, refuel duration), and Discipline (startup duration, scram count). 5-year window. Higher = more operationally excellent. Click to see the full breakdown.
41
Excellence
#59 of 93
Mid Quartile
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Days of continuous operation since the last outage ended. Clean run (no forced outages since last refueling).
88
Current Run
days ✔
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Longest recorded period of continuous operation between outages (2019-10-08 to 2021-03-28).
537
Record Run
days
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Breaker-to-Breaker runs — continuous operation exceeding the cycle-adjusted threshold (455 days for this 18-month cycle unit) with no trips to 0% power.
13
B2B Runs
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Lifetime capacity factor: average power level across all recorded days (100% = always at full power).
91.8%
Capacity Factor
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Net electricity actually generated over the most recent 12 months reported by the U.S. EIA (Form EIA-923), summed across every unit at this plant. Authoritative actuals, not an estimate.
18.66 TWh
Net Generation
EIA-923 · 12 mo to 2026-04 · plant total
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Total number of scheduled refueling outages detected in the historical data.
18
Outages
since 1999
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Average time from first power generation (>0%) to sustained full power (≥95% for 2+ days) across the last 3 scheduled outages. Click to compare against the fleet on the Operator Efficiency Leaderboard.
3
Avg Startup
days (last 3)
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Average fuel utilization — percent of the designed fuel cycle that this unit consumes before refueling, derived from the historical burn-down trajectory. Higher = more efficient operator (refuels with less margin remaining; closer to coastdown). Computed as 100% minus the unit's average refuel-point fuel %, using the last 3 years where available, otherwise lifetime average. Click to compare against the fleet on the Operator Efficiency Leaderboard.
98.4%
Fuel Utilization
3yr avg
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NukeWorker's Operational Excellence Score is a composite 0–100 ranking of every active US nuclear unit across 7 publicly observable performance metrics, grouped into three sub-scores:
Reliability — capacity factor, forced outage days, B2B avg streak
Efficiency — fuel utilization, refuel duration
Discipline — startup duration, scram count
Each unit's metric is converted to a percentile across the active fleet. Sub-score = average of its components; composite = average of the three sub-scores. Use the time-window toggle below to switch between 3yr / 5yr / lifetime.
Time window — change how far back we look
NukeWorker's
Operational
Excellence Score
41/100
Mid Quartile · #59/93
5-year window

Catawba 2 ranks #59 of 93 active US units on NukeWorker's Operational Excellence Score over the 5-year window. Strongest area: Refuel Duration (57th percentile). Weakest: Scrams (5-year) (29th percentile).

Reliability
37
Capacity factor + Forced outages + B2B streaks
Efficiency
57
Fuel utilization + Refuel duration
Discipline
29
Startup duration + Scram count
Cohort Rankings apples-to-apples comparison within each peer group
Reactor type: #38 of 61 PWR
Containment: #4 of 10 Ice Condenser
Cycle length: #30 of 53 18-month cycle
Fleet rank above (59 of 93) compares all active US units; cohort ranks compare only against units sharing this property.
Per-dimension breakdown (7 metrics)
Capacity Factor 44th
91.0% (higher better, Reliability)
Forced Outage Days/yr 35th
5.0d (lower better, Reliability)
B2B Avg Streak 33th
508d (higher better, Reliability)
Refuel Duration 57th
31d (lower better, Efficiency)
Scrams (5-year) 29th
0.6/yr (lower better, Discipline)

Each dimension's percentile is computed across the active US fleet (93 units with sufficient history). Sub-score = average of its component percentiles. Composite = average of the three sub-scores. 5-year window. View full leaderboard →

Methodology

NukeWorker's Operational Excellence Score is a composite ranking that combines 7 publicly observable performance metrics into a single 0-100 number per US nuclear unit.

How it's computed: Each unit's raw value is converted to a percentile (0-100) within the 93 active US units that have at least 2 completed refueling cycles. The 7 percentiles are averaged into 3 sub-scores (Reliability, Efficiency, Discipline), and those are averaged into the final composite.

Active window — 5-year:

  • Reliability — Capacity factor (5yr), forced outage days/yr (5yr), B2B avg streak (lifetime)
  • Efficiency — in-cycle fuel utilization (3yr), median refuel duration (5yr)
  • Discipline — robust mean startup duration, scrams/yr (5yr, annualised)

Cohort rankings: alongside the fleet rank, each unit gets ranked within its reactor type (PWR/BWR), containment design (Ice Condenser, Mark I, etc.), and cycle length (12/18/24-month). Useful for apples-to-apples comparisons.

What's excluded: subjective community ratings, confidential INPO ratings, financial metrics. We only use publicly available NRC + cycle data.

Why three windows? 5yr (default) is the industry standard. 3yr captures recent operational changes and post-pandemic recovery. Lifetime gives newer units a fair comparison and reveals long-term consistency.

Edge cases: units with fewer than 2 cycles (e.g., Vogtle 4) show "Provisional". Decommissioned units excluded.

Refresh cadence: recomputed daily. Each window cached separately.

A data-derived proxy for operational performance; not affiliated with INPO. INPO ratings are confidential and qualitative — ours is public and quantitative.

5-yr trend: 2021: 75/100 (#14/93)2022: 44/100 (#58/92)2023: 44/100 (#55/92)2024: 38/100 (#69/93)2025: 40/100 (#63/93)2026: 41/100 (#59/93) Stable vs 2025
Compare Catawba 2 head-to-head with up to 3 other units. Compare now
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Duration of each outage in days, shown chronologically. Green bars are scheduled refueling outages, red bars are forced/unscheduled. The orange dashed line marks the average duration. Extended outages (>180 days) and D&D periods are excluded.

Outage Duration Trend

Catawba 2 has 30 outages plotted here, averaging 24 days each. The most recent, in Mar 2026, was a unplanned outage lasting 15 days.
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Days between consecutive scheduled refueling outage starts, showing operating cycle regularity. The purple dashed line marks the average cycle length. Most U.S. reactors operate on 18-month (547 day) or 24-month (730 day) cycles.

Cycle Length History

Between refueling outages, Catawba 2 runs about 547 days, or roughly 18 months, per cycle. That average comes from 17 completed cycles, the most recent lasting 535 days.
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Time in days from first power generation (>0%) to sustained full power (≥95% for 2+ consecutive days) after each scheduled refueling outage. The dashed line marks the average. Includes startup testing holds and power dips.

Startup Duration Trend

After a refueling outage, Catawba 2 takes about 4 days to climb from first power back to full power. That average is drawn from 18 startups on record, and the most recent took 3 days.
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Estimated fuel remaining in the current cycle, expressed as a percentage of the unit's typical cycle. Starts at 100% when the unit returns to power post-refuel and drops as full-power-days are burned. Days at reduced power burn fuel proportionally — so a unit with significant downtime (high burn deficit) drops slower and ends up with MORE fuel left than its calendar position would suggest. Coastdown threshold around 15%. Toggle to overlay past cycles on a normalized "days into cycle" axis to see how aggressively this unit historically burns down before refuel.

Fuel Burn Down Cycle since Oct 5, 2025

48.4% remaining 278 / 506 days 16.8 FPD margin
Catawba 2 is 278 days into its current fuel cycle with an estimated 48.4% of its fuel left. This cycle is set up to run about 506 days. Across its last 17 cycles, it has refueled with an average of 1.5% remaining.
Avg refuel: 1.5% Avg refuel (3yr): 1.6% Deepest burn: 0.0% (2000-04 → 2001-09) Most margin: 6.7% (2001-10 → 2003-03)
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Monthly capacity factor with outage events overlaid as red bands. Green bars show average power level per month. Toggle to Daily view for raw daily data.

Power History

Over its operating life, Catawba 2 has run at about 91.8% of its rated capacity. Across the last 12 reported months it averaged 86.2%. On the chart, flat stretches near the top are full-power running and drops to zero are outages.
This table logs every recorded outage for Catawba 2, 30 in all since 1999. Of those, 18 were scheduled refueling outages and 12 were unplanned or forced. The typical outage lasted about 24 days. Where the Scheduled column shows (Model), the date is a NukeWorker projection because the utility had not published one.
Unscheduled
2026-03-31 2026-04-14 15 178d - -
Scheduled
2025-09-03 2025-10-04 32 340d 2025-09-06 -3d
Scram # 57344
2024-09-28 2024-09-28 1 167d - -
Scheduled
2024-03-17 2024-04-14 29 510d 2024-03-19 -2d
Scheduled
2022-09-14 2022-10-24 41 2d 2022-09-10 +4d
Unscheduled
2022-09-11 2022-09-12 2 138d - -
Scram # 55856
2022-04-23 2022-04-26 4 356d - -
Scheduled
2021-03-28 2021-05-02 36 537d 2021-03-27 +1d
Scheduled
2019-09-15 2019-10-08 24 520d 2019-09-08 +7d
Scheduled
2018-03-17 2018-04-13 28 525d 2018-03-17 0d
Scheduled
2016-09-10 2016-10-08 29 529d 2016-09-10 0d
Scheduled
2015-02-28 2015-03-31 32 499d 2015-02-28 0d
Scheduled
2013-09-14 2013-10-17 34 515d 2013-09-14 0d
Scheduled
2012-03-11 2012-04-17 38 86d 2012-03-10 +1d
Unscheduled
2011-12-16 2011-12-16 1 422d - -
Scheduled
2010-09-18 2010-10-20 33 518d 2010-09-18 0d
Scheduled
2009-03-07 2009-04-18 43 479d 2009-03-14 -7d
Scheduled
2007-09-15 2007-11-14 61 477d 2007-09-15 0d
Unscheduled
2006-05-21 2006-05-26 6 28d - -
Scheduled
2006-03-19 2006-04-23 36 506d 2006-03-18 +1d
Unscheduled
2004-10-28 2004-10-29 2 4d - -
Scheduled
2004-09-12 2004-10-24 43 536d 2004-09-11 +1d
Scheduled
2003-03-01 2003-03-26 26 435d 2003-03-01 0d
Unscheduled
2001-12-08 2001-12-21 14 47d - -
Scheduled
2001-09-15 2001-10-22 38 465d 2001-09-15 0d
Unscheduled
2000-06-06 2000-06-07 2 59d - -
Scheduled
2000-03-12 2000-04-08 28 68d 2000-03-12 0d
Unscheduled
1999-12-31 2000-01-04 5 201d - -
Unscheduled
1999-05-17 1999-06-13 28 2d - -
Unscheduled
1999-05-06 1999-05-15 10 - - -
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