Energy Secretary Rick Perry took sweeping steps on Friday to buttress a pair of financially-strapped nuclear plants under construction and redefine how coal and nuclear plants are compensated for the electricity they provide — a move that, if agreed to by independent federal energy regulators, could tilt some of the nation’s complex power markets away from renewables and natural gas.

Perry announced the Energy Department would provide $3.7 billion in loan guarantees to three Georgia utilities struggling to complete a pair of nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle generating plant. These loan guarantees come on top of $8.3 billion in loans the department has already given to the project, but they still might fall short of what will be required to complete the costly reactors.

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“For years, FERC has been relatively fuel-neutral, instead focusing on broader and successful approaches to reliability,” said Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford, and former chief of staff and an assistant secretary in the Department of Energy. “The question is whether that era has ended and we’ll now see different commissioners representing different fuel camps.”

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