Scientists and engineers from Europe, Japan, Russia, USA, China, India and South Korea are working in an unprecedented international collaboration on the next major step for the development of fusion - the International Tokamak Experimental Reactor (ITER).
ITER's mission is to demonstrate integrated physics and engineering on the scale of a power station. To do this, ITER will produce more energy output than is needed to begin and sustain fusion, demonstrate essential fusion energy technologies in a system integrating the appropriate physics and technology, and test key elements required to use fusion as a practical energy source.
The construction of ITER will cost in the region of 5 billion Euros. Through the involvement of the Fusion and Industry initiative, UK companies, including small and medium sized businesses, have already been nominated for the European Union's preferred in-kind component supply list for ITER. The UKAEA encourages companies who have not yet registered an interest in winning ITER business to visit the ITER website for a description of the technologies and services needed for the project, and then register on the Fusion and Industry and European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) databases.
ITER Procurement
Procurement for ITER will be handled by Domestic Agencies within each of the participating parties. In Europe the Domestic Agency, called Fusion for Energy or "F4E", is based in Barcelona. A preliminary Summary Table of Procurement Allocation between the ITER partners can be downloaded here. See the F4E website for further details: http://fusionforenergy.europa.eu/
In total, Europe is expected to deliver 220 contracts made up of 130 fabrication and 90 service contracts totalling 2 billion Euro over 10 years. These will be large contracts containing a substantial number of sub-contractor opportunities. See ‘ITER Business Opportunities 2007-2009’ Report and Presentations PDFs.
On-going ITER research at UKAEA
Within the ITER procurement regime, UKAEA will be part of major projects developing specialist plasma diagnostic, neutral beam and RF heating systems for ITER. It will be looking for UK companies to partner in building these systems. Advanced photonics techniques are involved in the diagnostics systems and we are a member of the Photonics Cluster (UK) to facilitate links to companies in this technology. Contact the Fusion and Industry team for more details.
ITER Procurement Successes for UK industry
UK companies are already winning important ITER research contracts. You will find details of these on the News page.
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