Financing nuclear growth: building confidence, sharing risk and mobilising capital

At the Financial Times' Energy Transition Summit in London, World Nuclear Association joined TerraPower and IAEA to discuss how better risk sharing, greater standardisation and stronger collaboration between governments, industry and financial institutions can unlock investment in the next generation of nuclear projects. 

Delivering the next wave of nuclear energy will require more than ambition. It will depend on building investor confidence, sharing risk effectively and creating the conditions for capital to flow into projects around the world. 

That was at the heart of "Nuclear's capital question", a panel at the Financial Times' Energy Transition Summit in London, moderated by Rachel Millard, Clean Energy Correspondent at the FT. Lola Infante of World Nuclear Association was joined by Chris Levesque, President and CEO of TerraPower, one of the Association's newest members, and IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to explore how governments, industry and financial institutions can work together to finance the expansion of nuclear energy. 

The summit, FT Live's 11th, ran under the theme "Powering a world under pressure". It took place as security of supply returns to the top of the global energy agenda and electricity demand climbs, driven by rapid electrification and the growing power needs of AI. Investment in secure, clean and domestically produced power is accelerating in response, a backdrop that puts reliable, low-carbon generation such as nuclear firmly in focus. 

The shift in sentiment was captured by the FT's own Energy Editor: 

"Before this year, I was unsure about whether the nuclear revival was a real thing. But I am now pretty sure that governments are determined." Malcolm Moore, Energy Editor, Financial Times 

Moving from ambition to investment 

The scale of the opportunity is significant. World Nuclear Association estimates that achieving global ambitions to triple nuclear capacity by 2050 will require investment measured in the trillions of dollars across the nuclear value chain. 

But, as Infante highlighted "The availability of capital is there." The fundamental challenge is ensuring that nuclear projects can access it. 

The discussion highlighted an important role for organisations such as World Nuclear Association: helping the financial community understand nuclear projects, their risks and the tools available to assess and manage them. 

Infante emphasised that many financial institutions are encountering nuclear projects without decades of direct experience in financing the sector. Information, engagement and the development of tools and frameworks that allow investors to assess different elements of project risk will therefore be essential. 

That work sits alongside the Association's broader efforts to bring together governments, industry, investors and other stakeholders to address the practical barriers to scaling nuclear energy. 

Building confidence through delivery 

For TerraPower, financing and project delivery are already closely intertwined. 

Chris Levesque explained that TerraPower's first Natrium project in Wyoming is being backed by private investment alongside support from the US Department of Energy. But subsequent projects will require substantially greater involvement from debt markets and other sources of capital. 

His central message was that successful delivery of first projects will be vital to unlocking that investment. 

"The path of these new plants is really about raising confidence, raising confidence through execution." Chris Levesque, TerraPower 

TerraPower, a new World Nuclear Association member, is seeking to demonstrate how advanced nuclear projects can be delivered through public-private partnership. Levesque also pointed to the growing importance of hyperscalers and major electricity users in helping to create the business case for new nuclear projects. 

As demand for reliable, clean electricity grows, such customers can play an increasingly important role alongside governments, project developers and investors. 

A changing international financing landscape 

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi placed the financing discussion within a wider shift in attitudes towards nuclear energy. 

He highlighted growing interest from countries considering nuclear power, including in Africa and Central America, as well as changing attitudes among international financial institutions. He specifically referred to the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and African Development Bank as institutions looking at nuclear as they consider financial products for their member countries. 

"Now we see international financial institutions, one after the other, looking into this because they want to offer financial products to their nation clients." Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General, IAEA 

Grossi also stressed that expansion must be accompanied by the right institutional capacity and continued attention to safety, security and non-proliferation. 

Sharing risk, rather than looking for a single model 

A clear theme running through the discussion was that there will be no single financing model that works for every nuclear project or every market. 

Different countries will adopt different approaches according to their market structures and the respective roles of government and private finance. The panel discussed models ranging from regulated approaches and government-backed financing through to private investment and long-term agreements with electricity users. 

A crucial principle that panelists identified to enable private investment focused on risk sharing and the idea that project risk should not sit entirely with one participant. 

"No one entity can be covering it all. It can't be the government, it can't be our investors, it can't be the hyperscalers." Chris Levesque, TerraPower 

Instead, successful projects will require a balanced allocation of risk between governments, developers, investors, supply-chain partners and customers. 

Standardisation can help unlock scale 

Financing is also closely linked to another recurring challenge for nuclear deployment: standardisation. 

The panel discussed greater alignment across regulation, technology, project delivery and financing models as ways of reducing complexity and supporting repeat deployment. Infante argued that nuclear should be considered alongside other major infrastructure sectors when assessing projects’ financing and be treated like any other mainstream asset class. 

"Nuclear is essentially like any other infrastructure industry… everything that will help standardise each of the points of decision, the design, the financing, the business model, will help accelerate us." Lola Infante, World Nuclear Association 

For World Nuclear Association, this is a central part of the challenge ahead: creating greater understanding between the nuclear and finance communities, helping establish confidence in projects and supporting the conditions needed to turn today's ambition into investable, repeatable nuclear programmes. 

With developers moving advanced projects forward, major energy users seeking reliable clean power and financial institutions increasingly engaging with nuclear, the conversation is shifting from whether nuclear growth can be financed to how governments, industry and investors can work together to deliver it.