Tokamak will be located at United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority campus
A new fusion energy advanced prototype with power plant-relevant magnet technology will be built in the UK by Tokamak Energy.
Tokamak’s compact spherical device, called ST80-HTS, will include a complete set of high temperature superconducting magnets to confine and control hydrogen fuel, which becomes plasma many times hotter than the sun.
The new purpose-built facility will be located at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) Culham Campus, near Oxford in England.
It comes just days after startup First Light Fusion also signed a deal to build a demonstration device at the Culham campus, and also in the wake of the UK government announcing the formation of a new body to deliver the country’s fusion programme.
In October last year Tokamak Energy and the UKAEA signed a framework agreement to enable closer collaboration to develop spherical tokamaks as a route to commercial fusion energy.
Designs for the facility are underway in partnership with construction consultants McBains, with building scheduled for completion in 2026.
Tokamak Energy chief executive Chris Kelsall said the go-ahead for the prototype was “a major step forward on our mission to demonstrate grid-ready fusion energy by the early 2030s”.
He said the ST80-HTS device “aims to validate key engineering solutions needed to make commercial fusion a reality and will showcase our world-class magnet technology at scale”.
He added that “public and private partnerships of this nature will be a crucial catalyst for fusion to deliver global energy security and mitigate climate change”.
The ST80-HTS will target the significantly longer pulse durations needed for sustained high power output in commercially competitive fusion power plants.
Tokamak Energy’s current ST40 fusion device in nearby Milton Park in Oxfordshire has recently been upgraded to enable experiments relating to future features that will be incorporated in both ST80-HTS and ST-E1.
Last year it achieved a 100 million degrees Celsius fusion plasma – the highest temperature ever recorded in a compact spherical tokamak.
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