Improving Uptime at Nuclear Power Plants

by Lee S. Gliddon III, Executive Vice President at Knowledge Relay, Inc.

Uptime, the proportion of time the plant is operating and producing electricity, is critical for nuclear power plant operations. Typically calculated as the plant’s actual electrical output over a given time period, divided by its potential output if operating at full capacity that given period.

In 2023, the global average capacity factor was 81.5%, up from 80.4% in 2022, according to World Nuclear Association reporting. That said, Knowledge Relay customers averaged uptimes that exceeded 90%.

Constellation Energy, the largest nuclear plant operator in the U.S., consistently achieves some of the highest capacity factors, often above 93%, with a large fleet including Byron, Braidwood, and Calvert Cliffs, placing it in the lead according to Statistca. NextEra Energy maintains uptime above 91%, with major plants like Turkey Point and St. Lucie. And Duke Energy maintains uptime around 90-92% in operating major facilities in the Carolinas such as Oconee, McGuire, and Catawba.

According to Westinghouse Nuclear, nuclear plants in the U.S. see fuel cost comprising only about 25% of their production costs, with the remaining 75% of production costs coming from fixed cost of operation and maintenance (O&M). And here is where Knowledge Relay can help . . .

Knowledge Relay’s AI and data management solutions can lower O&M costs and improve uptime by automating analytics, streamlining reporting, and enhancing your decision-making processes.

For example:

• AI and machine learning can automate the analysis of complex operational data, and allow predictive maintenance that reduces unplanned outages and the need for costly emergency repairs.
• Further, automated data migration and metrics reporting can eliminate significant manual labor—cutting staffing and administrative costs.
• Centralized, customizable KR dashboards can integrate data from all your sources: Improving the speed and accuracy of O&M decisions while reducing the risk of costly human error.
• And automation for scheduling and ETL tools can ensure that maintenance, reporting, and monitoring tasks are performed consistently and on time . . . preventing delays that could cause downtime.

In short, the advanced, automated metrics from Knowledge Relay’s KR Reports, Dashboards, and Data Scheduler give plant teams a unified, real time view of critical indicators, enabling faster, higher confidence decisions during online operations (and maintenance outages) by consolidating data from disparate systems and surfacing trends immediately.

And by separating data and display layers and automating ETL, metrics refresh quickly and reliably at scale, so Energy leaders can track performance, identify variances, and act on emerging issues without manual lag or reconciliation errors.

With a distributed architecture that processes data up to ten times faster, and proven 24/7 outage support, our Solution-as-a-Service keeps the right metrics in front of the right people at the right time, reducing downtime and improving execution quality across online (and outage) cycles.

You have enough to deal with!

Contact us today to see how our fully customizable reporting and analytics allow nuclear operators like you to improve uptime at your nuclear power plants in 2026.