June 23 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday that it will offer $17.5 billion in loans for a nuclear supply chain to finance five energy projects.

American Nuclear Supply Chain Loans will go toward financing two large-scale nuclear reactors per each of the five loan recipients. The projects are to be under construction by 2030.

“Just over one year ago, President [Donald] Trump directed the Energy Department and its agency partners to unleash the next American nuclear renaissance,” Chris Wright, secretary of energy, said in a statement.

“To accomplish that mission, these conditional loans will play an important role in reviving the supply chain needed for America to once again build large-scale commercial reactors. They will also help accelerate the timeline of building those large-scale reactors by up to three years, lowering construction costs and ensuring the United States is able to deliver on President Trump’s bold and ambitious energy addition agenda.”

The projects that receive funding from the Department of Energy will be jointly owned by Westinghouse Electric Company and the utility or energy company that partners with it. The department notes that Westinghouse’s AP1000 units are the only large-scale commercial nuclear reactors licensed in the United States.

To be eligible for the loans, Westinghouse and partnering companies will need to commit at least $500 million per project upfront.

The Department of Energy did not name any utility companies or energy providers that are partnering on nuclear energy projects.

The president signed an executive order last year targeting a quadrupling of the United States’ nuclear energy by 2050.

New nuclear plants were brought online in the United States in 2023 and 2024. Prior to that, much of the nation’s nuclear capacity had been established decades ago.