Millstone 3 - 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) and the current state. What is coming -- the utility's published Scheduled outage and NukeWorker's model Projection -- is part of a subscription. Colored by status. How far ahead you can see depends on your plan.
Sep2025OctNovDecJan2026FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOnline: Aug 24, 2025 to Oct 16, 2025Forced Outage: Oct 17, 2025 to Oct 26, 2025Power Ascension: Oct 27, 2025 to Oct 28, 2025Online: Oct 29, 2025 to Nov 3, 2025Power Ascension: Nov 4, 2025Reduced Power: Nov 5, 2025Online: Nov 6, 2025 to Aug 24, 2026Today
OnlineReduced PowerPower AscensionForced Outage
?
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.
37
Excellence
#69 of 93
Mid Quartile
?
Days of continuous operation since the last outage ended. Clean run (no forced outages since last refueling).
302
Current Run
days ✔
?
Longest recorded period of continuous operation between outages (1999-06-27 to 2001-02-03).
587
Record Run
days
?
Breaker-to-Breaker runs — continuous operation exceeding the cycle-adjusted threshold (452 days for this 18-month cycle unit) with no trips to 0% power.
7
B2B Runs
?
Lifetime capacity factor: average power level across all recorded days (100% = always at full power).
90.2%
Capacity Factor
?
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.
17.16 TWh
Net Generation
EIA-923 · 12 mo to 2026-05 · plant total
?
Total number of scheduled refueling outages detected in the historical data.
17
Outages
since 1999
?
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.
7
Avg Startup
days (last 3)
?
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.
91.7%
Fuel Utilization
3yr avg
?
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
37/100
Mid Quartile · #69/93
5-year window

Millstone 3 ranks #69 of 93 active US units on NukeWorker's Operational Excellence Score over the 5-year window. Strongest area: Scrams (5-year) (69th percentile). Weakest: Forced Outage Days/yr (8th percentile).

Reliability
25
Capacity factor + Forced outages + B2B streaks
Efficiency
15
Fuel utilization + Refuel duration
Discipline
69
Startup duration + Scram count
Cohort Rankings apples-to-apples comparison within each peer group
Reactor type: #44 of 61 PWR
Containment: #3 of 5 Dry Subatmospheric (PWR)
Cycle length: #35 of 53 18-month cycle
Fleet rank above (69 of 93) compares all active US units; cohort ranks compare only against units sharing this property.
Per-dimension breakdown (7 metrics)
Capacity Factor 25th
89.1% (higher better, Reliability)
Forced Outage Days/yr 8th
14.6d (lower better, Reliability)
B2B Avg Streak 43th
512d (higher better, Reliability)
Refuel Duration 15th
41d (lower better, Efficiency)
Scrams (5-year) 69th
0.2/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: 42/100 (#60/93)2022: 34/100 (#67/92)2023: 22/100 (#84/92)2024: 23/100 (#86/93)2025: 35/100 (#71/93)2026: 37/100 (#65/93) Stable vs 2025
Compare Millstone 3 head-to-head with up to 3 other units. Compare now
?
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

Millstone 3 has 41 outages plotted here, averaging 21 days each. The most recent, in Oct 2025, was a unplanned outage lasting 10 days.
?
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, Millstone 3 runs about 552 days, or roughly 18 months, per cycle. That average comes from 16 completed cycles, the most recent lasting 539 days.
?
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, Millstone 3 takes about 4 days to climb from first power back to full power. That average is drawn from 17 startups on record, and the most recent took 4 days.
?
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 May 19, 2025

12.0% remaining 459 / 502 days 17.2 FPD margin
Millstone 3 is 459 days into its current fuel cycle with an estimated 12.0% of its fuel left. This cycle is set up to run about 502 days. Across its last 16 cycles, it has refueled with an average of 1.8% remaining.
Avg refuel: 1.8% Avg refuel (3yr): 8.3% Deepest burn: 0.0% (2001-03 → 2002-09) Most margin: 8.3% (2023-12 → 2025-04)
?
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, Millstone 3 has run at about 90.2% of its rated capacity. Across the last 12 reported months it averaged 96.9%. 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 Millstone 3, 41 in all since 1999. Of those, 17 were scheduled refueling outages and 24 were unplanned or forced. The typical outage lasted about 21 days. Where the Scheduled column shows (Model), the date is a NukeWorker projection because the utility had not published one.
Unscheduled
2025-10-17 2025-10-26 10 75d - -
Unscheduled
2025-08-01 2025-08-03 3 76d - -
Scheduled 3R23
2025-04-11 2025-05-17 37 207d 2025-04-13 -2d
Unscheduled
2024-09-04 2024-09-16 13 231d - -
Unscheduled
2024-01-09 2024-01-17 9 32d - -
Unscheduled
2023-12-03 2023-12-08 6 3d - -
Scheduled 3R22
2023-10-20 2023-11-30 42 114d 2023-10-14 +6d
Scram # 56544
2023-05-31 2023-06-28 29 363d - -
Scheduled 3R21
2022-04-08 2022-06-02 56 295d 2022-04-07 +1d
Unscheduled
2021-06-11 2021-06-17 7 159d - -
Unscheduled
2020-12-31 2021-01-03 4 50d - -
Scheduled 3R20
2020-10-02 2020-11-11 41 171d 2020-10-19 -17d
Scram # 54663
2020-04-14 2020-04-14 1 4d - -
Scram # 54631
2020-04-02 2020-04-10 9 102d - -
Unscheduled
2019-12-18 2019-12-22 5 218d - -
Scheduled 3R19
2019-04-12 2019-05-14 33 515d 2019-04-13 -1d
Scheduled 3R18
2017-10-13 2017-11-13 32 477d 2017-10-08 +5d
Scram # 52000
2016-06-13 2016-06-23 11 27d - -
Scram # 51929
2016-05-16 2016-05-17 2 4d - -
Scheduled 3R17
2016-04-10 2016-05-12 33 73d 2016-04-10 0d
Scram # 51682
2016-01-25 2016-01-28 4 435d - -
Scheduled 3R16
2014-10-12 2014-11-16 36 132d 2014-10-12 0d
Scram # 50141
2014-05-26 2014-06-02 8 286d - -
Scram # 49260
2013-08-10 2013-08-13 4 85d - -
Scheduled 3R15
2013-04-14 2013-05-17 34 509d 2013-04-14 0d
Scheduled 3R14
2011-10-09 2011-11-22 45 419d 2011-10-09 0d
Unscheduled
2010-08-15 2010-08-16 2 89d - -
Unscheduled
2010-05-18 2010-05-18 1 2d - -
Scheduled 3R13
2010-04-11 2010-05-16 36 96d 2010-04-04 +7d
Unscheduled
2009-12-20 2010-01-05 17 392d - -
Scheduled 3R12
2008-10-12 2008-11-23 43 513d 2008-10-12 0d
Scheduled 3R11
2007-04-07 2007-05-18 42 68d 2007-04-07 0d
Unscheduled
2007-01-29 2007-01-29 1 421d - -
Unscheduled
2005-12-02 2005-12-04 3 36d - -
Scheduled 3R10
2005-09-30 2005-10-27 28 153d 2005-09-29 +1d
Unscheduled
2005-04-18 2005-04-30 13 347d - -
Scheduled 3R9
2004-04-03 2004-05-06 34 461d 2004-04-02 +1d
Unscheduled
2002-12-23 2002-12-29 7 80d - -
Scheduled 3R8
2002-09-07 2002-10-04 28 527d 2002-09-07 0d
Scheduled 3R7
2001-02-03 2001-03-29 55 587d 2001-02-03 0d
Unscheduled
1999-05-02 1999-06-27 57 - - -
Page created in 0.071 seconds with 13 queries.