£11.6mln awarded for fusion development

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) has awarded contracts worth £11.6mln in total to nine organisations to develop fusion.

Inside a fusion energy machine training facility at UKAEA’s Culham Campus © UKAEA

The nine organisations have been awarded a total of 10 contracts and are a mix of start-ups, small-medium enterprises, established companies and academia.

The contracts range between £500,000 and £1.4mln. They are funded by the Fusion Industry Programme, which was launched in 2021.

The contracts address prototypes for novel fusion materials, manufacturing and technologies; and developing heating and cooling systems for fusion machines.

The eight organisations focusing on manufacturing and materials are 3-Sci, Alloyed, Duality Quantum Photonics, Full Matrix, Jacobs, Oxford Sigma, TWI (Coldspray technology), and the University of Birmingham.

The two organisations focused on heating and cooling technologies are Cal Gavin and TWI (Coreflow technology).

Tim Bestwick, UKAEA’s Chief Development Officer, says, ‘Delivering fusion energy is one of the great scientific and engineering challenges of our time. The Fusion Industry Programme is supporting businesses to overcome these challenges and help make fusion a commercial reality.’