The UK government has announced a £120 million Future Nuclear Enabling Fund (FNEF). The main goal of the fund is to accelerate potential nuclear projects before the government selects the best schemes.

To be eligible for the fund companies bidding must be UK based or have a UK company branch. It is open to existing nuclear energy companies or new entrants, and they can be technology operators or developers.

“Our new £120 million fund will push forward our plan to deploy a new fleet of nuclear power stations as part of a British nuclear renaissance,” said Kwasi Kwarteng, secretary for business and energy.

The government has been pushing for improving Britain’s nuclear energy industry, in April the British Energy Security Strategy was announced in which the government set a target of 24 GW by 2050.

The British Energy Security Strategy announced that the government’s “long-term ambition is to increase the deployment of civil nuclear power to up to 24GW by 2050 – about 25% of our projected 2050 electricity demand – as well as taking one project to a Final Investment Decision (FID) in this parliament and two projects to FID in the next parliament, including small modular reactors, subject to technology readiness, value for money and relevant approvals”.

The government also announced in March 2022 plans to take a 20% stake in the £20 billion Sizewall C development, a new nuclear plant being built by French energy company EDF in Suffolk. This comes after an initial £100 million contribution to the project in January 2022. It is expected to be operational in 2026 and will generate enough energy to power six million homes

Sizewall C is the only UK nuclear power station in development. EDF closed the Hunterston B power station earlier in 2022 and in 2021 announced the early closing of Dungeness B power station after it had not been operational since 2018 due to technical issues.

Of the remaining six nuclear power stations in the UK, five will be shut down by 2030.