Romania has a three-track financing approach for the country’s nuclear program, starting with a state-aid package already submitted for the refurbishment of Cernavodă Unit 1, and continuing with a pending state-aid filing for Units 3-4 and an as-yet undefined model for the Doicești SMR project. Clarifications came in a policy debate hosted by Energy Policy Group (EPG) and Clean Air Task Force (CATF), few days before the expected approval of the Final Investment Decision (FID) for the Small Modular Reactors (SMR) project in Romania.
The government is pursuing EU co-financing where feasible, paired with Contracts for Difference (CfDs) to de-risk revenue — while acknowledging that the largest projects will require multi-source capital structures and careful risk allocation.
Unit 1 refurbishment – Modernization Fund + CfD package
Cernavodă Unit 1’s refurbishment is most advanced project from a financing standpoint — already underway on the technical side, with the key question becoming the cost of capital and the end-consumer impact of support mechanisms. The most plausible financing route combines a grant component from the EU Modernization Fund, with Romania aiming to secure 600 million euros, and a CfD component, intended to stabilize revenues and make the investment bankable. The grant is a slice of a refurbishment cost, meant to reduce the required CfD strike price, and therefore reduce the cost passed through the support mechanism.
While nuclear is not treated as a priority category at the EU level in the same way as renewables, Romania’s argument is that refurbishment is a modernization investment and that the fund can support it. This reasoning was also linked in the debate to the fact that the Fund has already accommodated certain non-priority investments — explicitly including some gas projects framed as enabling coal phase-out (even though fossil-fuel generation is generally restricted under the Fund’s rules).
The government submitted the Unit 1 state-aid scheme in December, including both components — Modernization Fund grant + CfD — and that approval typically takes around a year. However, Romania hopes to shorten the timeline.
Units 3-4: State-aid package is “almost ready” formal request expected soon
While Cernavodă Units 3 and 4 project is technically and industrially “straightforward”, based on known technology, and the consortium in place, the main target is now securing the final structure and approvals of the financing model.
Romania is to send a formal state-aid request to the European Commission around February, after an internal process involving stakeholders such as the Competition Council. Among the many unknowns, the future EU multiannual funding most probably arrives too late to serve as the decisive launch funding for Units 3-4. Co-financing opportunities are to be found, as some nuclear projects in the EU have already modelled. Poland prepared a mixed financing stack combining roughly 30% equity from the state treasury plus 70% debt backed by state guarantees, plus a two-way CfD for revenue stabilization. In the Czech Republic, the EC approved package for Dukovany plant is built around a state loan (repayable financial assistance) and a long-term revenue stabilization mechanism (PPA/CfD-style two-way price support), plus investor protections (e.g., change-in-law).
SMR at Doicești: Searching for anchor off-takers
On the Doicești SMR, Romania faces typical first-of-a-kind (FOAK) constraints: the chosen technology would be “first of a kind” in Romania, with higher costs per MWh and no economies of scale at the outset. The financial puzzle is still to be designed. A pathway might be built around private offtake — notably discussions with potential data center investors — where a PPA-like contract could provide revenue certainty, according the official governmental sources.
The logic is straightforward: if a large, creditworthy consumer commits to long-term offtake, it provides a PPA structure that can reassure lenders and international financiers that capital will be repaid through the project’s cash flows. Even with expected state guarantees in nuclear financing, the project will have to prove its bankability at prices consumers can afford.
Concerns to be addressed
The debates at the Energy Policy Group (EPG) and Clean Air Task Force (CATF) events surfaced several concerns related to both bankability and public acceptance.
A pointed distinction was made between the renewables CfD experience — perceived as closely anchored in EU-supported frameworks — and a future nuclear CfD that could be borne more directly by final consumers if a grant component is absent. Most of the participants seemed to believe that a CfD without a grant attached becomes a long-term commitment very hard to take politically.
Also, the time is critical here, too. Experts warn that a nuclear CfD must be bespoke, and such a mechanism might need long consultation and technical design effort to be completed.
The discussion highlighted that, despite Europe trending more favorable to nuclear overall, Romania faces declining public support, while affordability remains the dominant public concern. Speakers warned that long-term support mechanisms (notably CfDs) can quickly become politically sensitive if consumers perceive them as raising bills. The conversation also pointed to misinformation and disinformation as active pressures on public trust, reinforcing the need for transparent cost assumptions, clear explanations of what consumers are paying for (availability, security of supply, system value, and tangible local benefits — jobs, supply-chain participation, predictable revenues for the budgets), but also secure long-term access to clean electricity to underpin both climate targets and the competitiveness of high value-added industries.
