Meeting global ambitions for nuclear energy through 2050 will take around $6 trillion in investment, or about $250 billion a year, the World Nuclear Association said in an analysis on Wednesday.
That is the investment pace required to meet ambitions to increase nuclear capacity three times the current levels, the association said.
Global nuclear generation capacity has been fairly stagnant for years, but is experiencing a revival as a source of baseload power that complements volatile renewables output.
The analysis said that this will require a mixture of both public and private financing directed towards not only capacity additions, but also to the nuclear fuel cycle that is key to achieve this growth.
These are the key findings of the roadmap outlined in the report. It also highlights the opportunity for institutional investors in equity and debt and how this can move nuclear from a government-led area towards a mainstream energy infrastructure asset class.
It says there are six key needs to be met to achieve this: institutional support, business standardization, priceable risk and reward, market remuneration frameworks, supply chain capacity and maturity transformation mechanisms.
These components have been harmonized previously in offshore wind and liquefied natural gas to provide a coherent investment path.
"The challenge is not a shortage of capital. The challenge is creating the confidence, capability and investment architecture that allow capital to flow to nuclear projects at scale," said Sama Bilbao y Leon, Director General of World Nuclear Association.
He said the World Nuclear Investment Guide offers financial institutions the tools, frameworks and expertise they need to assess nuclear projects as confidently as they do with other types of energy assets.
Nuclear energy provides about 9% of the world's electricity from 400 gigawatts of generation capacity located in 31 countries while it accounts for more than 20% of the world's low-carbon electricity.
The World Nuclear Outlook Report forecasts capacity more than tripling to 1,446 GW by 2050.