The United States' fleet of 94 commercial nuclear reactors continues to anchor the nation's electricity supply, according to generating statistics compiled by the Nuclear Energy Institute using U.S. Energy Information Administration data. In 2023, the most recent full year in the dataset, nuclear plants produced approximately 775.4 million megawatt-hours of electricity, supplying 18.2 percent of all electricity generated in the country that year.

The fleet's average capacity factor, a measure of how often reactors run at full power, reached 93.0 percent in 2023, continuing a run of consistently high performance that has held above 90 percent for more than two decades. Total summer generating capacity across the fleet stood at 95,773 megawatts in 2023.

The numbers reflect a long climb in reliability since the industry's early decades. In 1990, the capacity factor stood at 66.0 percent, meaning today's reactors run at full output far more consistently than their predecessors did a generation ago, even as the number of operating units has declined from a peak in the late 1980s through plant retirements and consolidations.

Nuclear energy's steady output has become a selling point as utilities and large industrial customers look for round-the-clock power sources that do not depend on weather conditions. With data center and industrial electricity demand rising nationwide, the fleet's consistent generation profile is drawing renewed attention from policymakers and utility planners evaluating how to meet future load growth.

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