Cernavoda Goes Dark as Danube Drought Forces Full 1.35 GW Shutdown
Romania's only nuclear plant is offline, removing 1.35 GW from a summer-stressed grid and pushing regional nuclear generation cuts to 48%.
Romania's 1.35 GW Cernavoda nuclear plant completed a full shutdown on Thursday (2026-08-13) as Entso-E data confirmed the facility's remaining 680 MW reactor had been ramped down due to falling Danube river levels. The country is now without any nuclear generation for the duration of the drought.5
Romanian day-ahead power was trading at €153.23/MWh by Friday (2026-08-14), a price that reflects the scale of the supply gap now confronting grid operators in southeastern Europe. With Cernavoda dark, the full 1.35 GW of stable baseload the plant normally provides is gone. The closure pushed regional nuclear generation cuts to around 48% of prior capacity, according to Entso-E data reported by Montel News — a figure encompassing both the Romanian outage and curtailments elsewhere in the area.5,4
Cernavoda's operator Nuclearelectrica had warned on Tuesday (2026-08-11) that the 680 MW second reactor, the last unit still generating, might have to be shut if the Danube did not recover. The river provides cooling water for the plant, and with levels continuing to fall through early August, the closure became unavoidable.4
The shutdown follows a season of Danube-driven nuclear attrition across the region. Hungary's Paks plant, the country's sole nuclear facility, faced the same river-level constraint and had also been running reduced output before Prime Minister Peter Magyar said on Monday (2026-08-10) that one turbine was expected to restart that evening after rainfall lifted the river. Paks was switching back on just as Romania was preparing to go fully dark.3
The drought has compounded broader European energy stress. An oilprice.com analysis published on Thursday (2026-08-06) described how extreme heat and falling river levels were simultaneously curtailing nuclear and hydroelectric output, reducing refineries' cooling efficiency and raising the cost of inland barge transport across the continent.2
The current Cernavoda outage echoes a May 2026 episode that analysts said pushed Romania's grid to its limits. A faulty transformer forced the 650 MW Unit 2 offline on Monday (2026-05-18), coinciding with scheduled maintenance on the 650 MW Unit 1 that had started on 10 May 2026. Montel reported that losing around 1.3 GW of stable generation in combination produced significant morning and evening price spikes.1
The August outage is larger and less predictable. Nuclearelectrica has not provided a restart timeline. Unlike an equipment failure — where engineers can estimate a repair window — a drought-driven shutdown tracks the river, not a maintenance schedule. In May, Entso-E data pointed to a return by 1 June for that outage, a clock set by a known repair scope. No equivalent marker exists now.1,4
ICE Endex TTF front-month gas gained 1.81% to €61.38/MWh by 20:05 UTC on Friday (2026-08-14). German front-month power (DEB) stood at €134.87/MWh over the same period, well below Romania's day-ahead level, underscoring where the shortfall is most acute in the region.5
The pace of Danube recovery now governs the outlook for Romanian power prices. Rainfall sufficient to restore river cooling capacity could allow Nuclearelectrica to bring the 680 MW reactor back online and partially rebuild the country's baseload supply. Without that recovery, Romania heads into the second half of August with zero nuclear generation and a day-ahead market already pricing the shortage well above neighboring grids.5,4