Tata BP Solar India Limited — a joint venture of Tata Power and BP Solar, a division of BP — plans to increase its capacity to 300 megawatts (MW), with a target of becoming a $1 billion firm by 2012.
As part of its expansion plans, Tata BP Solar has invested $100 million in the current fiscal year to manufacture 180 MW of solar cells and 125 MW of solar modules. The company's existing capacity of solar photovoltaic cells can generate 52 MW of electricity. Calyon Bank and BNP Paribas Bank provided $78 million of funding for part of the 180-MW solar cell expansion project.
Tata BP Solar has a wide range of products for the Indian subcontinent and global market that include lighting systems, photo-voltaic cells, pumping systems, solar heaters, solar pressure cookers, solar power packs for rural clinics, street lights, vaccine storage refrigerators, water heating systems and water purifiers. The company has an impressive export portfolio and supplies solar power equipment to Asian countries such as Afghanistan in addition to exporting products to the U.S. and countries in Western Europe.
The company is also leveraging its expertise in providing services using solar energy for setting up telecom infrastructure in Bhutan. In collaboration with Tata Agrico, Tata BP Solar is lighting up the rural areas of the country deprived of electricity by distributing its solar products to villagers. Some of the recently completed projects include rural electrification of 20 villages in Orissa, the commissioning of 500 to 600 solar water pumping systems in Punjab, and electrification of 80 villages in the Leh and Kargil districts.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited are some of the big names in the company's list of Indian clients. Tata BP Solar sees a potential in working closely with real estate developers building large townships for providing solar energy. Real estate developers such as DLF Limited and Unitech Limited with a significant presence in the National Capital Region make the region an attractive market to supply solar power.
Based on current trends, solar energy is forecast to grow 30% a year in India. Solar power is a clean source of energy with a potential to fulfill power generation shortcomings. The problem is in India's own utilization, as the country exports nearly 99% (4,000 MW) of solar cells produced in a year, deploying just 1% locally.
Though there is a huge potential for the solar power market to grow in India, there are some deterrents such as low awareness, non-conducive policies and non-availability of funds for initial capital investment. Requiring only a one-time investment and no-repetitive costs, solar power remains a cost-efficient source of energy, providing a solution to India's energy needs.
Ireland electricity support measures include PSO levy rebates, RESS 2 renewables, CRU-directed EirGrid backup capacity, and grid investment for the Celtic Interconnector, cutting bills, boosting security of supply, and reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels.
Key Points
Government steps to cut bills and secure supply via PSO rebates, RESS 2 renewables, backup power, and grid upgrades.
✅ PSO levy rebates lower domestic electricity bills.
✅ RESS 2 adds wind, solar, and hydro to the grid.
✅ EirGrid to procure temporary backup capacity for winter peaks.
Ireland's Cabinet has approved a package of measures to help mitigate the rising cost of rising electricity bills, as Irish provider price increases continue to pressure consumers, and to ensure secure supplies to electricity for households and business across Ireland over the coming years.
The package of measures includes changes to the Public Service Obligation (PSO) levy (beyond those announced earlier in the year), which align with emerging EU plans for more fixed-price electricity contracts to improve price stability. The changes will result in rebates, and thus savings, for domestic electricity bills over the course of the next PSO year beginning in October. This further reduction in the PSO levy occurs because of a fall in the relative cost of renewable energy, compared to fossil fuel generation.
The Government has also approved the final results of the second onshore Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS 2) auction, echoing how Ontario's electricity auctions have aimed to lower costs for consumers. This will bring significantly more indigenous wind, solar and hydro-electric energy onto the National Grid. This, in turn, will reduce our reliance on increasingly expensive imported fossil fuels, as the UK explores ending the gas-electricity price link to curb bills.
The package also includes Government approval for the provision of funding for back-up generation capacity, to address risks to security of electricity supply over the coming winters, similar to the UK's forthcoming energy security law approach in this area. The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU), which has statutory responsibility for security of supply, has directed EirGrid to procure additional temporary emergency generation capacity (for the winters of 2023/2024 to 2025/2026). This will ultimately provide flexible and temporary back-up capacity, to safeguard secure supplies of electricity for households and businesses as we deploy longer-term generation capacity.
Today’s measures also see an increased borrowing limit (€3 billion) for EirGrid – to strengthen our National Grid as part of 'Shaping Our Electricity Future' and to deliver the Celtic (Ireland-France) Interconnector, amid wider European moves to revamp the electricity market that could enhance cross-border resilience. An increased borrowing limit (€650 million) for Bord na Móna will drive greater deployment of indigenous renewable energy across the Midlands and beyond – as part of its 'Brown to Green' strategy, while measures like the UK's household energy price cap illustrate the scale of consumer support elsewhere.
Ontario IESO Accounting Dispute highlights tensions over public sector accounting standards, auditor general oversight, electricity market transparency, KPMG advice, rate-regulated accounting, and an alleged $1.3B deficit understatement affecting Hydro bills and provincial finances.
Key Points
A PSAS clash between Ontario's auditor general and the IESO, alleging a $1.3B deficit impact and transparency failures.
✅ Auditor alleges deficit understated by $1.3B
✅ Dispute over PSAS vs US-style accounting
✅ KPMG support, transparency and co-operation questioned
The bad blood between the Ontario government and auditor general bubbled to the surface once again Monday, with the Liberal energy minister downplaying a dispute between the auditor and the Crown corporation that manages the province's electricity market, even as the government pursued legislation to lower electricity rates in the province.
Glenn Thibeault said concerns raised by auditor general Bonnie Lysyk during testimony before a legislative committee last week aren't new and the practices being used by the Independent Electricity System Operator are commonly endorsed by major auditing firms.
"(Lysyk) doesn't like the rate-regulated accounting. We've always said we've relied on the other experts within the field as well, plus the provincial controller," Thibeault said.
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"We believe that we are following public sector accounting standards."
Thibeault said that Ontario Power Generation, Hydro One and many other provinces and U.S. states use the same accounting practices.
"We go with what we're being told by those who are in the field, like KPMG, like E&Y," he said.
But a statement from Lysyk's office Monday disputed Thibeault's assessment.
"The minister said the practices being used by the IESO are common in other jurisdictions," the statement said.
"In fact, the situation with the IESO is different because none of the six other jurisdictions with entities similar to the IESOuse Canadian Public Sector Accounting Standards. Five of them are in the United States and use U.S. accounting standards."
Lysyk said last week that the IESO is using "bogus" accounting practices and her office launched a special audit of the agency late last year after the agency changed their accounting to be more in line with U.S. accounting, following reports of a phantom demand problem that cost customers millions.
Lysyk said the accounting changes made by the IESO impact the province's deficit, understating it by $1.3 billion as of the end of 2017, adding that IESO "stalled" her office when it asked for information and was not co-operative during the audit.
Lysyk's full audit of the IESO is expected to be released in the coming weeks and is among several accounting disputes her office has been engaged in with the Liberal government over the past few years.
Last fall, she accused the government of purposely obscuring the true financial impact of its 25% hydro rate cut by keeping billions in debt used to finance that plan off the province's books. Lysyk had said she would audit the IESO because of its role in the hydro plan's complex accounting scheme.
"Management of the IESO and the board would not co-operate with us, in the sense that they continually say they're co-operating, but they stalled on giving us information," she said last week.
Terry Young, a vice-president with the IESO, said the agency has fully co-operated with the auditor general. The IESO opened up its office to seven staff members from the auditor's office while they did their work.
"We recognize the work that she's doing and to that end we've tried to fully co-operate," he said. "We've given her all of the information that we can."
Young said the change in accounting standards is about ensuring greater transparency in transactions in the energy marketplace.
"It's consistent with many other independent electricity system operators are doing," he said.
Lysyk also criticized IESO's accounting firm, KPMG, for agreeing with the IESO on the accounting standards. She was critical of the firm billing taxpayers for nearly $600,000 work with the IESO in 2017, compared to their normal yearly audit fee of $86,500.
KPMG spokeswoman Lisa Papas said the accounting issues that IESO addressed during 2017 were complex, contributing to the higher fees.
The accounting practices the auditor is questioning are a "difference of professional judgement," she said.
"The standards for public sector organizations such as IESO are principles-based standards and, accordingly, require the exercise of considerable professional judgement," she said in a statement.
"In many cases, there is more than one acceptable approach that is compliant with the applicable standards."
Progressive Conservative energy critic Todd Smith said the government isn't being transparent with the auditor general or taxpayers, aligning with calls for cleaning up Ontario's hydro mess in the sector.
"Obviously, they have some kind of dispute but the auditor's office is saying that the numbers that the government is putting out there are bogus.
Those are her words," he said. "We've always said that we believe the auditor general's are the true numbers for the province of Ontario."
NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns said the Liberal government has decided to "play with accounting rules" to make its books look better ahead of the spring election, despite warnings that electricity prices could soar if costs are pushed into the future.
NRC Special Inspection at River Bend reviews failures of portable emergency diesel generators, nuclear safety measures, and Entergy Operations actions after Fukushima; off-site power loss readiness, remote COVID-19 oversight, and corrective action plans are assessed.
Key Points
An NRC review of generator test failures at River Bend, assessing nuclear safety, root causes, and corrective actions.
✅ Evaluates failures of portable emergency diesel generators
✅ Reviews causal analyses and adequacy of corrective actions
✅ Remote COVID-19 oversight; public report expected within 45 days
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun a special inspection at the River Bend nuclear power plant, part of broader oversight that includes the Turkey Point renewal application, to review circumstances related to the failure of five portable emergency diesel generators during testing. The plant, operated by Entergy Operations, is located in St. Francisville, La., as nations like France outage risks continue to highlight broader reliability concerns.
The generators are used to supply power to plant systems in the event of a prolonged loss of off-site electrical power coupled with a failure of the permanently installed emergency generators, a concern underscored by incidents such as the SC nuclear plant leak that shut down production for weeks. These portable generators were acquired as part of the facility's safety enhancements mandated by the NRC following the 2011 accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi facility in Japan, and amid constraints like France limiting output from warm rivers, the emphasis on resilience remains.
The three-member NRC team will develop a chronology of the test failures and evaluate the licensee's causal analyses and the adequacy of corrective actions, informed by lessons from cases like Davis-Besse closure stakes that underscore risk management.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they will complete most of their work remotely, while other regions address constraints such as high river temperatures limiting output for nuclear stations. An inspection report documenting the team's findings, released as global nuclear project milestones continue across the sector, will be publicly available within 45 days of the end of the inspection.
IAEA Nuclear Reactor Simulators enable virtual nuclear power plant training on IPWR/PWR systems, load-following operations, baseload dynamics, and turbine coupling, supporting advanced reactor education, flexible grid integration, and low-carbon electricity skills development during remote learning.
Key Points
IAEA Nuclear Reactor Simulators are tools for training on reactor operations, safety, and flexible power management.
✅ Simulates IPWR/PWR systems with real-time parameter visualization.
✅ Practices load-following, baseload, and grid flexibility scenarios.
✅ Supports remote training on safety, controls, and turbine coupling.
Students and professionals in the nuclear field are making use of learning opportunities during lockdown made necessary by the Covid-19 pandemic, drawing on IAEA low-carbon electricity lessons for the future.
Requests to use the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) basic principle nuclear reactor simulators have risen sharply in recent weeks, IAEA said on 1 May, as India takes steps to get nuclear back on track. New users will have the opportunity to learn more about operating them.
“This suite of nuclear power plant simulators is part of the IAEA education and training programmes on technology development of advanced reactors worldwide. [It] can be accessed upon request by interested parties from around the world,” said Stefano Monti, head of the IAEA’s Nuclear Power Technology Development Section.
Simulators include several features to help users understand fundamental concepts behind the behaviour of nuclear plants and their reactors. They also provide an overview of how various plant systems and components work to power turbines and produce low-carbon electricity, while illustrating roles beyond electricity as well.
In the integral pressurised water reactor (IPWR) simulator, for instance, a type of advanced nuclear power design, users can navigate through several screens, each containing information allowing them to adjust certain variables. One provides a summary of reactor parameters such as primary pressure, flow and temperature. Another view lays out the status of the reactor core.
The “Systems” screen provides a visual overview of how the plant’s main systems, including the reactor and turbines, work together. On the “Controls” screen, users can adjust values which affect reactor performance and power output.
This simulator provides insight into how the IPWR works, and also allows users to see how the changes they make to plant variables alter the plant’s operation. Operators can also perform manoeuvres similar to those that would take place in the course of real plant operations e.g. in load following mode.
“Currently, most nuclear plants operate in ‘baseload’ mode, continually generating electricity at their maximum capacity. However, there is a trend of countries, aligned with green industrial revolution strategies, moving toward hybrid energy systems which incorporate nuclear together with a diverse mix of renewable energy sources. A greater need for flexible operations is emerging, and many advanced power plants offer standard features for load following,” said Gerardo Martinez-Guridi, an IAEA nuclear engineer who specialises in water-cooled reactor technology.
Prospective nuclear engineers need to understand the dynamics of the consequences of reducing a reactor’s power output, for example, especially in the context of next-generation nuclear systems and emerging grids, and simulators can help students visualise these processes, he noted.
“Many reactor variables change when the power output is adjusted, and it is useful to see how this occurs in real-time,” said Chirayu Batra, an IAEA nuclear engineer, who will lead the webinar on 12 May.
“Users will know that the operation is complete once the various parameters have stabilised at their new values.”
Observing and comparing the parameter changes helps users know what to expect during a real power manoeuvre, he added.
European Grid Frequency Clock Slowdown has made appliance clocks run minutes behind as AC frequency drifts on the 50 Hz electricity grid, driven by a Kosovo-Serbia billing dispute and ENTSO-E monitored supply-demand imbalance.
Key Points
An EU-wide timing error where 50 Hz AC deviations slow appliance clocks due to Kosovo-Serbia grid imbalances.
✅ Clocks drifted up to six minutes across interconnected Europe
✅ Cause: unpaid power in N. Kosovo, contested by Serbia
✅ ENTSO-E reported 50 Hz deviations from supply-demand mismatch
Over the past couple of months, Europeans have noticed time slipping away from them. It’s not just their imaginations: all across the continent, clocks built into home appliances like ovens, microwaves, and coffee makers have been running up to six minutes slow. The unlikely cause? A dispute between Kosovo and Serbia over who pays the electricity bill.
To make sense of all this, you need to know that the clocks in many household devices use the frequency of electricity to keep time. Electric power is delivered to our homes in the form of an alternating current, where the direction of the flow of electricity switches back and forth many times a second. (How this system came to be established is complex, but the advantage is that it allows electricity to be transmitted efficiently.) In Europe, this frequency is 50 Hertz — meaning a current alternating of 50 times a second. In America, it’s 60 Hz, and during peak summer demand utilities often prepare for blackouts as heat drives loads higher.
Since the 1930s, manufacturers have taken advantage of this feature to keep time. Each clock needs a metronome — something with a consistent rhythm that helps space out each second — and an alternating current provides one, saving the cost of extra components. Customers simply set the time on their oven or microwave once, and the frequency keeps it precise.
At least, that’s the theory. But because this timekeeping method is reliant on electrical frequency, when the frequency changes, so do the clocks. That is what has been happening in Europe.
The news was announced this week by ENTSO-E, the agency that oversees the single, huge electricity grid connecting 25 European countries and which recently synchronized with Ukraine to bolster regional resilience. It said that variations in the frequency of the AC caused by imbalances between supply and demand on the grid have been messing with the clocks. The imbalance is itself caused by a political argument between Serbia and Kosovo. “This is a very sensitive dispute that materializes in the energy issues,” Susanne Nies, a spokesperson for ENTSO-E, told The Verge.
Essentially, after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, there were long negotiations over custody of utilities like telecoms and electricity infrastructure. As part of the ongoing agreements (Serbia still does not recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state), four Serb-majority districts in the north of Kosovo stopped paying for electricity. Kosovo initially covered this by charging the rest of the country more, but last December, it decided it had had enough and stopped paying. This led to an imbalance: the Kosovan districts were still using electricity, but no one was paying to put it on the grid.
This might sound weird, but it’s because electricity grids work on a system of supply and demand, where surging consumption has even triggered a Nordic grid blockade in response to constrained flows. As Stewart Larque of the UK’s National Grid explains, you want to keep the same amount of electricity going onto the grid from power stations as the amount being taken off by homes and businesses. “Think of it like driving a car up a hill at a constant speed,” Larque told The Verge. “You need to carefully balance acceleration with gravity.” (The UK itself has not been affected by these variations because it runs its own grid.)
“THEY ARE FREE-RIDING ON THE SYSTEM.”
This balancing act is hugely complex and requires constant monitoring of supply and demand and communication between electricity companies across Europe, and growing cyber risks have spurred a renewed focus on protecting the U.S. power grid among operators worldwide. The dispute between Kosovo and Serbia, though, has put this system out of whack, as the two governments have been refusing to acknowledge what the other is doing.
“The Serbians [in Kosovo] have, according to our sources, not been paying for their electricity. So they are free-riding on the system,” says Nies.
The dispute came to a temporary resolution on Tuesday, when the Kosovan government stepped up to the plate and agreed to pay a fee of €1 million for the electricity used by the Serb-majority municipalities. “It is a temporary decision but as such saves our network functionality,” said Kosovo’s prime minister Ramush Haradinaj. In the longer term, though, a new agreement will need to be reached.
There have been rumors that the increase in demand from northern Kosovo was caused by cryptocurrency miners moving into the area to take advantage of the free electricity. But according to ENTSO-E, this is not the case. “It is absolutely unrelated to cryptocurrency,” Nies told The Verge. “There’s a lot of speculation about this, and it’s absolutely unrelated.” Representatives of Serbia’s power operator, EMS, refused to answer questions on this.
For now, “Kosovo is in balance again,” says Nies. “They are producing enough [electricity] to supply the population. The next step is to take the system back to normal, which will take several weeks.” In other words, time will return to normal for Europeans — if they remember to change their clocks, even as the U.S. power grid sees more blackouts than other developed nations.
ITER Nuclear Fusion advances tokamak magnetic confinement, heating deuterium-tritium plasma with superconducting magnets, targeting net energy gain, tritium breeding, and steam-turbine power, while complementing laser inertial confinement milestones for grid-scale electricity and 2025 startup goals.
Key Points
ITER Nuclear Fusion is a tokamak project confining D-T plasma with magnets to achieve net energy gain and clean power.
✅ Tokamak magnetic confinement with high-temp superconducting coils
✅ Deuterium-tritium fuel cycle with on-site tritium breeding
✅ Targets net energy gain and grid-scale, low-carbon electricity
It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, often described as the holy grail of clean energy by proponents, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.
Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split, with next-gen nuclear power exploring smaller, cheaper, safer designs that remain distinct from fusion. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.
But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research as part of a broader green industrial revolution under way in several regions. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.
“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.
Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, at a time when Europe is losing nuclear power and needs energy, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.
The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.
When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity, even as some envision nuclear beyond electricity for industrial heat and fuels.
Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.
In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.
A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.
One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat
The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.
“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.
“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.
Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022, while efforts in advanced fission such as a mini-reactor design are also progressing. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.
Choosing a fuel Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.
At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.
The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.
“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity, where advanced reactors can build on decades of expertise. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”
