The developer of an expanded 400MW fusion nuclear power plant, described as the world’s largest, is racing to secure building permits and additional funding, with an announcement in recent days that it will build the facility in Chesterfield County. , Go. on a 100-acre site leased by state utility giant Dominion Energy.
Fusion technology startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems said the ARC plant, which will be operational in the early 2030s, will begin development next year even before a smaller prototype in the its base at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. ARC technology uses powerful magnets to contain and control nuclear fusion fuel and is very different from nuclear fission processes.
The site and deadline for the ARC project were announced by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and company co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard after what they said was a global search of about 100 locations for the commercial scale power project.
Advantages of the Virginia site, near Richmond, include being in an energy growth region, driven largely by artificial intelligence, that is becoming one of the fastest-growing data centers in the United States , they both said. A state legislative report noted earlier this month that data center demand in Virginia, about 10,000 MW today, could reach 30,000 MW by 2040 if transmission infrastructure were available.
The site is also close to a grid connection, transportation, an available skilled workforce and “a receptive community,” Mumgaard said.
Commonwealth did not disclose the cost of the project, but Youngkin said the investment would be in the “billions,” with some media sources describing it as around $3 billion. Since its launch in 2018 from MIT’s tech incubators by the university’s alumni, the company has raised more than $2 billion from about 60 private investors that include Bill Gates, Google and Eni, the Italian oil and gas giant. Youngkin said the power plant would bring billions of dollars in economic development.
The company is now completing the estimated $500 million fusion complex, which includes building a donut-shaped tokamak prototype called SPARC that will heat hydrogen atoms to about 180 million degrees F. The plasma resulting is compressed by a powerful magnetic field to fuse atoms and release energy. It is expected to produce 50-100 MW of fusion power and produce its first plasma in 2026,
Commonwealth did not confirm by publication the members of the design and construction team for the ARC project, but those working on the SPARC prototype and other tasks at the Fort Devens site are engineer HDR and BOND Construction as the design firm principal and contractor for all construction phases, with Thornton Tomasetti and VHB as structural and civil engineers, respectively,
Youngkin said the developer will finance the project, with power being sold to specific buyers through power purchase agreements and directly into the PJM Regional Interconnection Market. The Commonwealth did not release the names of the clients.
In addition to the private investment, the ARC project has $16.5 million in technology funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, with a small investment also from the state’s Clean Energy Innovation Bank, county tax breaks and of teams
identifying a location is “the longest part of building a power plant,” Mumgaard said in a blog post describing the site as home to a soon-to-be retired coal-fired power plant that was originally slated to have a natural gas plan. as its replacement. “Dominion will provide us with technical and development expertise, while we will provide them with expertise on how to build and operate fusion power plants,” he said.
The ARC plant won state approval after the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined last year that the fusion technology would not require federal licensing. But the project will still need other permits from local, state and federal authorities. The local license application is under review early next year and could be approved in the summer.
Meanwhile, commercial fusion developer Focused Energy also announced a partnership with “ultrafast” laser developer Amplitude to advance two laser systems for inertial fusion energy. The development is financially supported by the German Federal Agency for Advanced Innovations, with light lines to be installed at Focused Energy’s $65 million laser development facility that will will locate in the San Francisco Bay Area that was announced earlier this year.
