The US Department of Energy (DOE), the UK’s Department of Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) and Tokamak Energy are to jointly support a $52m upgrade of Tokamak’s ST40 experimental fusion facility. The project will start in 2025 and the total funding of $52m is divided evenly among all three partners.
In December 2023, DOE and DESNZ announced a fusion strategic partnership to advance both the US Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy and the UK’s Fusion Strategy. A key goal of the partnership is to establish shared access to, and development of, facilities needed for fusion research and development (R&D). Through the DOE-DESNZ-Tokamak Energy collaboration, researchers at universities, national laboratories, and institutes in both the US and UK will be able to benefit from the research carried out on the company’s privately owned ST40 spherical tokamak.
Tokamak Energy, the only private company with more than 10 years of experience designing, building and operating tokamaks, is one of eight awardees of the DOE’s Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program, where DOE partners with the private sector to advance R&D toward realising industry-led designs for a fusion pilot plant.
“This represents a huge leverage opportunity for advancing fusion science and technology,” said Dr Geraldine Richmond, DOE Under Secretary for Science & Innovation. “These new investments will strengthen our partnerships with the private sector and our international allies. Each partner stands to gain significantly more than the funds committed.”
Fusion requires the simultaneous achievement of three conditions within the plasma fuel: the particles must be hot enough (temperature), close enough (density), and retain their heat for long enough (energy confinement time) to release net energy. Technological advances in the magnets confining the plasma are expected to enable the achievement of fusion-relevant conditions in more compact and potentially more economical devices.
In a previous partnership with the DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Tokamak Energy’s ST40 achieved fusion-relevant temperatures six times hotter than the core of the sun. The goal is to enable fusion conditions with good confinement that is compatible with sustainment for long durations in a future fusion pilot plant, by coating the inner wall of ST40 device with the element lithium.
Tokamak Energy CEO Warrick Matthews said: “Our high field spherical tokamak ST40 has achieved impressive results in recent years, and we are thrilled to commence ST40’s new mission through this strong public-private partnership. This programme will advance fusion science and technology for spherical tokamaks and the industry more broadly, in pursuit of a common goal to deliver fusion power.”
Jean Paul Allain, the DOE’s Office of Science Associate Director for Fusion Energy Sciences, said DOE was eager to see this new capability on the ST40. “What excites me most is the possibility of deploying our university and national lab scientists to leverage this new capability through our Private Facility Research programme. It’s these publicly supported scientists, collaborating with their colleagues at private facilities, who drive the major advances needed in this field to support a competitive US fusion power industry.”
Kerry McCarthy, Minister for Climate in DESNZ said that fusion has the potential to be a clean and sustainable energy source. “This strategic partnership is therefore crucial to develop this new and exciting technology, and bring it into use quicker, and is a vote of confidence in the skills and expertise of those working in this innovative new field in the United Kingdom and United States.”
Tokamak Energy was founded in 2009 as a spin-off from UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). Its US subsidiary, Tokamak Energy Inc, was established in 2019. The company claims to be the only private fusion company with over a decade’s experience developing the two technologies that offer the most efficient and commercially attractive route to fusion energy – the compact spherical tokamak and high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets.
Tokamak’s dedicated HTS magnet business division, TE Magnetics, in collaboration with key manufacturing partners, aims to become the leading supplier of HTS technology for fusion and other new applications, including science, renewable energy and propulsion in water, air and space.
Tokamak Energy, with more than 250 employees, has 77 families of patent applications and has raised $250m to support its projects -$200m from private investors and $50m from the UK and US governments.
The company has completed design work on its next advanced prototype fusion device, which it says “has the potential to de-risk and accelerate the development of multiple technologies required for the delivery of sustainable fusion energy”. This device, scheduled for build completion in the late 2020s, is also expected to demonstrate multiple advanced technologies required for fusion energy and inform the design of a fusion pilot plant. “Our fusion pilot plant will demonstrate the capability of delivering electricity into the grid in the 2030s, paving the way for globally deployable 500 MW commercial plants.
