Nuclear reactors generated 784,780,718 megawatt-hours of electricity in the United States last year, supplying 17.4 percent of the nation's power even as the industry's overall fleet has shrunk. The Nuclear Energy Institute's latest generating statistics show the fleet produced that output while operating at a 93.4 percent capacity factor, a measure of how consistently plants run relative to their maximum possible output, underscoring how efficiently the remaining reactors are being run.

Total installed nuclear capacity now stands at 96,867 megawatts, down from levels seen a decade ago as plants including Kewaunee, Vermont Yankee, Fort Calhoun, Oyster Creek, Pilgrim, the Indian Point units, and Palisades have retired. Despite those closures, annual generation has held remarkably steady in the 780 to 810 million megawatt-hour range, a sign that capacity factor gains and uprates at existing plants have offset much of the lost capacity from shutdowns.

That steady output matters as electricity demand climbs nationally, driven in part by data centers and industrial reshoring. Nuclear plants running above 93 percent capacity factor leave little room for additional output from existing units without uprates or life extensions, which is part of why utilities and federal regulators have increasingly focused on license renewals and power uprates rather than relying solely on new construction to meet demand growth.

The industry figures also illustrate nuclear's outsized role relative to its shrinking share of total generating capacity. Even as nuclear's share of the country's electricity mix has slipped from about 20 percent, the fleet remains the largest single source of carbon-free electricity generation in the United States.

Source: Nuclear Energy Institute -- https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/us-nuclear-generating-statistics