The National Wealth Fund has set out plans to significantly accelerate investment, committing up to £5 billion of public money a year to clean energy, industrial transformation and strategic infrastructure as part of a more targeted growth strategy.
Under the new approach, the fund will prioritize ten sectors, with clean energy at its core. These include energy storage, electricity grids, nuclear power, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, as well as ports, green steel manufacturing, transport infrastructure, regional regeneration, battery manufacturing and the electric vehicle supply chain.
Oliver Holbourn, chief executive of the National Wealth Fund, said the strategy was designed to unlock “growth opportunities on the path to clean energy” and enable the UK to be more resilient and self-sufficient in a rapidly changing global economy.
The fund, which was renamed from the UK Infrastructure Bank in 2024, has a core capital budget of almost £28 billion. Over the last five years it has invested just over £8bn, around half of it in clean energy, and helped raise £17bn in private funding.
Holbourn said the NWF now aims to deploy the remainder of its capital over the next five financial years, targeting a ratio of £3 of private investment for every £1 of taxpayers’ money. Clean energy will remain “a really core part of our portfolio,” he said.
Overall, the fund estimates that its activities will create or support around 200,000 jobs and inject more than £100 billion into the UK economy. A spokesman confirmed that this headline included the “extraordinary” credit facility of up to £36.6 billion that the NWF is providing for the Sizewell C nuclear project alongside its core investment program.
Beyond its 10 priority sectors, the NWF will also explore opportunities in an additional 15 areas, including artificial intelligence and critical minerals. Holbourn said strengthening “sovereign and strategic capabilities” was becoming increasingly important, with possible future investments in UK deposits of tungsten, cobalt, manganese and nickel, building on existing support for lithium and tin projects.
The National Wealth Fund is based in Leeds and is wholly owned by the UK Treasury but operates independently of ministers. Its mission is to support the government’s growth and clean energy missions, generate returns for taxpayers and stimulate private sector investment. Holbourn said the fund would continue to take “significantly more risk than other commercial financial institutions” while aiming to achieve underlying profitability within its planning horizon.
The fund’s minimum investment size is £25 million for equity or £50 million for debt. However, Holbourn said the average deal size would need to exceed £100 million to deploy capital at the required pace, as the organization has the capacity to complete around 40 investments per year.
To date, the NWF has made around 70 investments. This includes significant support for the expansion of the UK’s electricity transmission network, such as an £800 million financial guarantee to support SSE’s network projects in the north of Scotland, and a £600 million commitment to Scottish Power to strengthen links between Scotland and England.
Additionally, the company has invested across the energy storage sector, including in lithium-ion battery projects and long-duration storage technologies such as Highview Power’s plans for large-scale liquid air energy storage. Other investments include Cornish Lithium, which aims to produce battery-grade lithium in Cornwall, and Cornish Metals, which is reviving historic tin mining in the region.
Holbourn said the faster deployment strategy reflected both urgency and opportunity. “We want to move quickly but purposefully and strategically, helping to build the clean energy systems, industrial capacity and regional growth that the UK needs in the long term,” he said.
