Several western countries have announced ambitious nuclear energy programmes to boost energy security and support decarbonisation targets following the 2022 energy crisis. However, persistent delays, cost overruns, and volatile financial conditions hinder orthodox strategic planning and deter investment in a sector that has stagnated for two decades.
To accommodate for the deep uncertainty, this study employs a Robust-Decision Making (RDM) approach to develop financing policy recommendations to meet the United Kingdom (UK) government’s nuclear ambitions for 2050. Different revenue, financing, and government support schemes are tested via the RDM framework across wide-ranging plausible future conditions. Three deployment scenarios that meet the government’s target build upon current UK construction and planned initiatives, incorporating GenIII+ light-water technologies with varying amounts of large-scale reactors (LR) and Small Modular Reactors (SMR). Findings indicate that the financial and revenue structure of nuclear programmes, particularly the adoption of regulated models over market-aligned ones, helps manage financial risks by addressing uncertainties inherent in nuclear power deployment. This could in turn facilitate investment in the sector and restrict the risk costs falling on consumers. Direct government backing is discussed, and the fiscal cost of state majority investment is estimated and set against broader public energy funding.