NEI's Nuclear Performance - December 2007

Here's a summary of U.S. nuclear plant performances last month:

Preliminary estimates indicate nuclear generation in 2007 was approximately 807 billion kilowatt-hours (bkWh), breaking the 2004 record of 788.5 bkWh. Estimates place the nuclear fleet average capacity factor in 2007 at 91.8%, breaking the record of 90.1%, also set in 2004.

For the month of December 2007, the fleet average net capacity factor was 96.1 percent, about 1.5 percentage points higher than that of December 2006. Nuclear generation in the month of December was 71.7 billion kilowatt-hours, compared to 70.5 bkWh for December 2006.

NEI’s preliminary look at the data suggests that the record setting generation in 2007 is the result of: (a) approximately 10 fewer refueling outages occurring in 2007 than in 2005 and 2006; (b) fewer days of generation lost to maintenance outages than in 2004, 2005, or 2006; (c) the addition of 4.5 bkWh to fleet generation produced by the return of Browns Ferry 1; and (d) the addition of about 700 megawatts of uprates to nuclear plants since 2004.

For the report click here. It is also located on NEI's Financial Center webpage.