More UK energy projects are getting stuck before final investment decisions because developers cannot secure bankable offtake deals and long-term contracted revenues, while policy uncertainty, permitting delays and grid access problems add to delivery risk, according to a new report from the Energy Industries Council, the UK’s largest energy trade association.
Based on interviews conducted in late 2025 with 50 CEOs and senior executives across 44 organisations, the Bankable Energies Report reveals that 44% of respondents said bankability had not improved since the start of 2025, while 18% said it was unchanged and 38% said it had improved.
While viable offtake agreements were identified by up to 34% of interviewees as a key condition for projects to reach financeable terms and move towards FID, political, policy and regulatory uncertainty was flagged by 32% of respondents as a major blocker to bankability.
Report participants also pointed to direct government support, state-backed revenue mechanisms and policy clarity as key enablers, while warning that unclear risk allocation can make projects unfinanceable even where demand exists.
Interviewees included organisations from the supply chain, financial institutions and investors, insurers and policymakers. The report also points to a sharp gap between sectors lenders view as proven and those still treated as first-of-a-kind, as 24% of interviewees cited first-of-a-kind technology or unproven scaling risk as a key reason projects fail the bankability test.
Stuart Broadley, the EIC’s chief executive, said the UK needs to treat the energy system as one integrated chain, not a set of separate policy programmes. “In a more volatile geopolitical landscape, you cannot run energy policy in silos,” Broadley said. “The supply chain is one system. If the UK keeps sending mixed signals, capital and capability move elsewhere. The way forward is to treat energy as a matter of national security – an integral part of the nation’s sovereignty – and that starts with prioritising energy production at home, while putting credible, bankable support in place to scale lower-carbon projects.”
The report frames “bankability” as a debt finance and funding question, not a judgement on whether a project makes sense in principle. That distinction is key because many projects are moving through early development work but are never built. The report describes a pattern where studies and front-end engineering design progress, then projects “stall at FID”.
EICDataStream, the EIC database of energy projects under development worldwide, confirms the trend. Offshore wind reached FID in seven of 33 UK projects, while hydrogen reached FID in three of 120 projects. Floating offshore wind recorded zero projects at FID out of 51. Carbon capture reached FID in five of 70 projects.
Those pressures are most visible in hydrogen and CCUS. Interviewees say hydrogen buyers may exist, but they hesitate to sign long-term offtake on terms lenders can underwrite, so projects keep circulating through studies and FEED rather than reaching FID. CCUS adds “missing-link” risk across the chain because capture, transport and storage all have to move together. The report says debt finance starts to move only when government-backed business models and cross-chain backstops, including clear termination protection, are in place.
The report also draws a line between established “electrons” projects and “molecules” projects that rely on newer markets, complex infrastructure and multi-party risk. The report says banks and pension funds can finance technologies they see as repeatable, while newer technologies still lack the long-term contracts lenders expect.
Mahmoud Habboush, the report’s author, said projects are failing at the point where lenders need hard commitments. “A lot of what we are seeing is a paper pipeline,” Habboush said. “Projects move through studies and FEED, then stall at FID because the revenue is not locked in through a bankable offtake contract, the risk is not allocated in a way lenders can accept, and the timetable starts to sound like a hypothesis once you factor in permitting and grid uncertainty.”
In the report’s tally of bankability enablers, interviewees most often cited direct government support and state-backed revenue mechanisms, policy clarity and political support, and contracted revenue certainty such as offtake agreements. Respondents also flagged the flip side as key blockers: policy and regulatory uncertainty, and the absence of bankable offtake.
The report describes offtake as the first gate for many projects. Even where buyers exist, the report says price and contract length often fall short of what lenders require. Delivery risk then amplifies the financing challenge. The report argues that planning and consenting delays do not just slow projects, but add costs and push supply chain capacity to other markets. It also says grid access uncertainty is becoming a hard constraint, with future projects facing weaker confidence in connection dates.
Projects can fall over on who carries the risk. The report says clients and lenders often try to bundle everything into one big deal to make it look simple. Contractors then price in risks they cannot control, costs jump, and the project no longer makes financial sense.
Rebecca Groundwater, the EIC’s global head of external affairs, said the report points to delivery credibility and a clear pipeline as key tests of bankability. “This is fixable, but it needs delivery discipline,” Groundwater said. “Publish a five-year pipeline people can bank on, unblock consenting and grid access, and stop pushing risk into contracts in ways that make projects unfinanceable. One thing we learned from the report is that government can be both an enabler and a barrier.”
To view the full report, please visit: https://isu.pub/JYOCTz0