Oppenheimer Energy
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Approach

We go first.

Large energy projects require commitments long before construction financing is available. In advanced nuclear energy, that development period is unusually demanding. Someone has to originate the opportunity, align the site and customer, establish the project structure, advance the commercial and licensing path and commit development capital while important questions are still unresolved.

Oppenheimer Energy takes that developer role.

Why we stay small

The developer owns the comprehensive plan without having to perform every scope.

Oppenheimer Energy is built around a senior core team and a broad partner Coalition. For each project, we select the right partners for engineering, construction, licensing, supply chain, finance, legal work and community engagement, then bring those scopes under one project plan.

Where it matters, we keep more than one credible path open. This keeps one vendor or contract from sidetracking the entire project and allows us to build the right team for the site, rather than the team we happen to employ.

The Oppenheimer Energy mark at the center, inside a turning ring of eight core team members. Around them, a network of Coalition partners grouped by scope: engineering, construction, licensing, supply chain, finance, legal and community engagement. Each project draws one or more partners from each scope.

Aligned incentives

Shared risk, shared reward.

Large projects can fall behind even when individual contracts are performing as written. We structure scope, milestones, risk and reward so that the owner, developer, delivery partners and capital providers are working toward the same result: safe delivery against an agreed cost and schedule.

We share those milestones and accountability. Success pays, and turns a fragmented chain of contractors into one team with one interest.

  • Owner and offtakers Utility or data center builderNuclear and speed-to-power PPAs → An operating asset
  • Developer Brings the parties together → A delivered project
  • Capital providers Finance, ITC monetizationForeign direct investment → A financeable project
  • Delivery partners OEM, EPCs and EDF → A clear scope to repeat

Shared resultSafe delivery against an agreed cost and schedule.

Four parties sit around one project. The developer brings the parties together. The owner and offtakers are a utility or data center builder with nuclear and speed-to-power PPAs. Capital providers bring finance, ITC monetization and foreign direct investment. Delivery partners are the OEM, EPCs and EDF. A ring of five stages, idea to delivery, marks the shared milestones. At the center a particle cloud, the shared result, grows at each stage. At delivery, safe delivery against an agreed cost and schedule, the result pays back to all four: an operating asset, a delivered project, a financeable project, and a clear scope to repeat.

Financing

Finance each stage for the risk it actually carries.

Early development capital, long lead procurement, construction equity, federal credit, tax incentives and long tenor debt solve different problems. We structure the capital stack by stage so that each source of capital is matched to the risk it is designed to carry.

The objective is to reach Final Investment Decision with a commercial and capital structure that is already financeable.

How a project moves

Every stage should leave the project more financeable than the one before it.

  1. 01

    Concept

    We start with a durable energy need such as grid capacity, industrial demand, energy security or replacement generation. We then test whether an advanced nuclear energy project is a credible fit for the site and customer.

  2. 02

    Feasibility

    Site, technology, licensing path, offtake, delivery model, schedule, cost range and capital pathway are evaluated together. The result should be a decision-grade project case with the major commercial and technical questions connected.

  3. 03

    Development

    We form the project structure and advance the work required for Final Investment Decision, including licensing, engineering, long lead procurement, commercial agreements, supply chain, capital formation and risk allocation.

  4. 04

    Construction

    At construction, the OEM, EPC, suppliers and owners deliver their scopes against an integrated cost and schedule baseline. Oppenheimer Energy keeps those interfaces aligned, identifies problems early and maintains accountability to the project as a whole.

  5. 05

    Delivery

    At commercial operation, the completed facility moves into the ownership and operating structure established for the project. Depending on the mandate, Oppenheimer Energy may remain involved or transfer the asset to its long-term owner after development and delivery are complete.

Why it gets better

Fleet economics, built one project at a time.

Overnight capital cost per kWe in 2024 dollars, for two-unit AP1000 plants. Vogtle Units 3 and 4 are realized, excluding bankruptcy and COVID costs. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th plants are projections from the report's moderate scenario; the report gives figures up to the 4th plant. Source: Idaho National Laboratory, INL/RPT-25-84701 (2025). Site locations are illustrative.

A map of the contiguous United States made of particles. AP1000 plants appear across it one after another, each linked to an earlier plant: Vogtle Units 3 and 4, realized at $14,409 per kWe, then a 2nd plant projected at $10,000 per kWe, a 3rd at $7,800 and a 4th at $6,200. Three more plants follow as the fleet. Pulses travel along the links from earlier plants to later ones.

The first build absorbs that which later builds should not repeat, including design completion, supply chain reactivation, workforce development, contract learning and project systems. The point is to retain those gains instead of relearning the same lessons at every site.

We develop with the next project in mind. Standardized designs, repeat suppliers, reusable commercial structures and disciplined lessons learned are how a series of projects becomes a fleet.

Discipline

Cost and schedule have to be managed from the beginning and tracked throughout delivery. We establish clear baselines, responsibilities, milestones, interfaces and escalation paths early.

That matters in capital-intensive energy development, where owners, regulators, capital providers and host communities need to understand how decisions affect cost, schedule and risk.

Technology

Technology follows the project.

01 / 06

Large light-water reactor

Water cools the reactor core and carries its heat to a steam turbine. A single unit is sized for a large grid.

  1. 01 / 06

    Large light-water reactor

    Water cools the reactor core and carries its heat to a steam turbine. A single unit is sized for a large grid.

  2. 02 / 06

    Light-water small modular reactor

    A smaller water-cooled reactor, built largely in factories and assembled on site. A site can add units as demand grows.

  3. 03 / 06

    High-temperature gas-cooled reactor

    Helium gas cools a core of ceramic-coated fuel. Its outlet heat is hot enough for industrial processes as well as power.

  4. 04 / 06

    Sodium-cooled fast reactor

    Liquid sodium cools the core at near-atmospheric pressure. The core sits in a pool of sodium inside the reactor vessel.

  5. 05 / 06

    Fluoride salt-cooled reactor

    Molten fluoride salt cools a core of ceramic-coated fuel pebbles at near-atmospheric pressure.

  6. 06 / 06

    Microreactor

    A reactor small enough to move by truck, sized to power a single site such as a base or a remote facility.

Simplified forms of six reactor designs, not to scale.

We maintain independence across reactor technologies and evaluate each design against the requirements of the project. Licensing maturity, standardization, supply chain readiness, financeability and technical performance all matter.

For near-term energy deployment, the best technology is one that can be licensed, supplied, financed, delivered and repeated for the site and customer.

Safety and sustainability

Safety comes before cost and schedule. We look for strong nuclear safety, quality culture and operating discipline when we select partners, and anyone working on our projects must be able to raise a concern without commercial pressure.

Long-lived energy infrastructure also has to work for its host. We consider local infrastructure, workforce, community priorities and long-term economic value as part of development from the beginning.

The evidence

Repeat-build economics are measurable. The Department of Energy and Idaho National Laboratory's analysis of recent nuclear construction experience documents how design completion, workforce learning, supply chain maturity and repeated construction can reduce cost and schedule from one unit to the next.

That evidence informs how we develop energy projects. We complete the planning work before construction, preserve the learning and build in sequence rather than as isolated one-offs.

Potential Cost Reduction in New Nuclear Deployments Based on Recent AP1000 Experience. U.S. Department of Energy / Idaho National Laboratory, 2025.

Read the cost evidence

If you are developing, financing or delivering major energy infrastructure, we would like to hear from you.

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