UK-based Tokamak Energy has released images of its future commercial fusion power plant. Meanwhile, Tokamak Energy’s ST-E1 fusion pilot plant is expected to demonstrate the capability of delivering electricity into the grid in the early 2030s paving the way for globally deployable 500 MWe commercial plants. Tokamak Energy Managing Director Warrick Matthews said: “Fusion energy from power plants like this will be zero carbon, safe, secure, extremely efficient and run on limitless fuel from sea water. Fusion is the ultimate energy source – no emissions and you can put a plant where you need it.”
In 2022, Tokamak Energy achieved a world-first by reaching a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius in its ST40 spherical tokamak. This is the threshold required for commercial fusion energy and the highest temperature ever achieved in a privately funded spherical tokamak. In February this year, the company announced that it had built the first set of new generation high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets to be assembled and tested in fusion power plant-relevant scenarios.
Dr Rod Bateman, HTS Magnet Development Manager at Tokamak Energy said the magnets “enable the construction and operations of spherical tokamaks, and so are a game changer for getting clean, limitless fusion energy on the grid faster”.
Full assembly of Tokamak Energy’s new Demo4 facility at its headquarters in Milton Park, near Oxford, should be completed this year. Demo4 will comprise 44 individual magnetic coils recently manufactured using 38 kilometres of innovative HTS tape. This can carry currents with zero electrical resistance and it requires five times less cooling power than traditional superconducting materials.
Demo4 will comprise 14 toroidal field (TF) limbs and a pair of poloidal field coil stacks to form a cage-shaped structure. It will need be tested at an extremely low temperature of minus 253 C – just 20 degrees above absolute zero. Strong magnetic fields are generated by passing large electrical currents through arrays of electromagnet coils that will surround the plasma in future power plants. The magnets are wound with precision from HTS tapes, which are multi-layered conductors made mostly of strong and conductive metals, but with a crucial internal coating of ‘rare earth barium copper oxide’ (REBCO) superconducting material.
Demo4 will have a magnetic field strength of over 18 Tesla, which is nearly a million times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field. Testing will extend into 2024, informing designs and operational scenarios for the advanced prototype, ST80-HTS, and subsequent fusion power plant, ST-E1.
“Demo4 will allow us to create substantial magnetic forces and test them in fusion power plant-relevant scenarios,” said Dr Bateman. “Importantly, it will substantially progress the technology readiness level of HTS magnets as a key part of our mission to demonstrate grid-ready fusion in the early 2030s.
Tokamak Energy says fusion power plants can be connected to a traditional turbine to produce electricity as well as provide heat for multiple industrial uses, including metalworks, water desalination or hydrogen production. They will generate a lot of power from a small amount of fuel and take up small amounts of land, compared with solar and wind farms.
The company was founded in 2009 as a spin-off from UK Atomic Energy Authority and currently employs a growing team of over 250 people. It has 70 families of patent applications and has raised $250m, comprising $200m from private investors and $50m from the UK and US governments.
Image: Artist's rendition of Tokamak Energy's planned commercial fusion power plant (courtesy of Tokamak Energy)
