Pathways to Keep Financing Flowing into Clean Electricity Sectors

Abstract

In fall 2025, ACORE, Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, the EFI Foundation, and the World Resources Institute convened technology developers, finance providers, large-load customers, and legal and policy experts to explore how to keep finance flowing toward clean electricity sectors. Participants defined three central challenges to keeping capital flowing into these projects: inflationary pressure and the rapid increase in electricity demand; regulatory and policy uncertainty around tax credits and permitting; and financing barriers for first-of-a-kind clean firm power projects such as geothermal, nuclear, carbon capture and sequestration, and long-duration storage.

Participants discussed a set of market-based solutions and the benefits of policy certainty to support the near-term scaling of existing energy resources, alongside investments in the commercialization of clean firm technologies.