The Government plans will take a 20 per cent stake in the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant as part of a new UK energy strategy.

With one fifth coming from the Government and another fifth from EDF, the remaining 60 per cent for the £20bn project is hoped to be raised from institutional investors such as pension funds.

The Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill is currently going through Parliament that will allow institutional investors to use a regulated asset base funding model, making investment of nuclear plants much easier and attractive.

The Government has signalled that it is ready to use nuclear energy to help make the UK energy independent, but the strategy has not been fully revealed as nuclear options include large plants and possibly several small modular reactors (SMRs).

The Government has already committed £100m to the project and sees the nuclear option as the only current technology to guarantee low carbon energy, making up to a quarter of the UK’s future energy needs (nuclear currently provides around 16 per cent, but this is largely from reactors that are due to be decommissioned by the end of the decade).

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