Nuclear Power Deployment Scorecard

Powering Future Decades

July 2, 2008
< Back to Scorecard

New Nuclear Plant Deployment
Current State of the Industry

Federal Financial Incentives

Summary: EPAct 2005 incentives are at various stages of development: two rules issued and one notice published.

Standby Support: Rule issued, no industry Conditional Agreement requests to date, no contracts issued.

• Final Rulemaking Issued – August 2006.
• Published Standard Conditional Agreement – September 2007.
• DOE released on-line instructions for requesting Conditional Agreement – December 2007.
• Two Notices of Intent to Request Conditional Agreement received – April 21, 2008 and June 13, 2008.
• Expect first request from industry for Conditional Agreements – FY 2008.
• Expect first approval by DOE for standby support contracts – Late 2010.

Production Tax Credits: Notice issued.

• Published Internal Revenue Bulletin 2006-18 on May 2006.
• Final Rule on Tax Credit and Guidelines on "Certification Process" – FY 2008.

Energy Facility Loan Guarantee: Final rulemaking issued; no nuclear-related loan guarantee application received.

• DOE issued solicitations for $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for new nuclear power facilities and $2 billion for the "front end" of the nuclear fuel cycle on June 30, 2008.
• As estimates of the construction costs continue to rise, the authorized amount for loan guarantees may be unable to cover the necessary number of nuclear projects needed to catalyze follow-on nuclear construction fully financed by the private sector. It will be necessary to:
• Increase the loan guarantee authority,
• Revise the Final Rule to allow inter-creditor agreements across multiple loans on one project, or
• Agree that only the actual USG exposure on partially-guaranteed loans be scored against the loan guarantee authority rather than the entire loan principal.
• Nuclear power facilities solicitation is broken into two application parts that must be received by the Department by September 29, 2008 and December 19, 2008, respectively.
• Nuclear fuel cycle solicitation is also broken into two application parts that must be received by the Department by September 29, 2008 and December 2, 2008, respectively.