① The U.S. Department of Energy announced $17.5 billion in loans to support the construction of 10 large nuclear reactors, with project construction timelines expected to be advanced by three years.
② The funds will mainly be used to procure key equipment and core components. All five projects will adopt Westinghouse Electric’s AP1000 nuclear reactor design.
June 24 News: The U.S. Department of Energy announced on Tuesday local time that it will provide a total of $17.5 billion in loan support to utility companies and energy enterprises to accelerate the construction and deployment of 10 large nuclear reactors across the United States.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright stated that these loans will help reduce the construction costs of nuclear power projects and are expected to advance the construction timelines of the related projects by approximately three years.
It is reported that the loan program will support the construction of five nuclear power projects, each equipped with two large nuclear reactors. The funds will mainly be used to procure key equipment and core components that have long manufacturing cycles, lengthy delivery times, and enormous investment scales during nuclear power plant construction.
All five projects will adopt Westinghouse Electric’s AP1000 nuclear reactor design. A single AP1000 unit has a generating capacity of approximately 1.1 gigawatts, sufficient to meet the electricity demand of more than 800,000 households. Currently, the AP1000 is the only large nuclear reactor design in the United States that has obtained a commercial operating license.
Westinghouse Electric will cooperate with up to five qualified utility companies or energy enterprises to advance the above projects. At present, the company has signed letters of intent with seven potential partners and has preliminarily determined the corresponding project sites.
Wright declined to disclose the locations of the candidate projects during a conference call with the media. He stated that which projects will ultimately receive loan support has not yet been determined, and these projects are distributed in different regions of the United States.
Wright claimed: “We believe that these projects have good economic benefits for utility company shareholders, electricity users, and hyperscale data center operators alike.”
Boosted by the Department of Energy’s announcement, shares of Cameco, the parent company of Westinghouse Electric, rose nearly 3% that day.
Greg Beard, head of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, stated that the loan funds will not be directly issued to Westinghouse Electric, but will instead be provided to five specially established special purpose vehicles (SPVs).
He pointed out that Westinghouse Electric and its partners must invest nearly $1 billion in equity capital into each SPV in order to obtain the corresponding loan funding support.
Beard also stated that the Trump administration expects large technology companies to sign long-term power purchase agreements with these nuclear power projects, providing stable revenue guarantees and financing support for nuclear power plant construction.
In recent years, with the rapid development of the artificial intelligence industry, the technology sector has played a key role in driving the revival of nuclear power demand. Major technology companies are actively seeking stable, low-carbon energy sources capable of providing around-the-clock power supply to meet the growing electricity demand of expanding data centers.
Currently, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google have separately signed agreements to support the restart of operations at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa.
However, the technology industry has so far not signed any agreements to directly support new large-scale nuclear power plant projects.
In May 2025, Trump signed an executive order requiring the initiation of construction on 10 large nuclear reactors by 2030. Subsequently, Westinghouse Electric committed to cooperating in achieving this goal.
