14 Apr (NucNet): The Spanish company Ferrovial Agroman has won a €30 million contract to design and build the high voltage power grid needed to supply power to plant systems such as heating, cryogenics and cooling at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter), F4E, the EU organisation managing Europe’s contribution to Iter, announced.
The six-year contract – Ferrovial Agroman’s fourth for the Iter project – covers the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of the high voltage complex, as well as the construction of the buildings necessary to host the electrical equipment.
“This contract sets the foundations of the power supply that Iter will require to demonstrate the viability of fusion energy on this scale,” said Pietro Barabaschi, acting director of F4E.
Ferrovial Agroman said the 1,200-megavolt grid will have two substations comprising of seven transformers. It will provide the energy needed to heat the plasma in the reactor and to supply the cryogenic and cooling systems and other infrastructure.
Ferrovial Agroman will also carry out civil engineering works in connection with the buildings and areas where electric devices are located.
Ferrovial Agroman already participates in the construction of the tokamak complex as part of a consortium with Vinci and Razel-Bec. It won the contract for the magnetic power conversion and reactive power compensation buildings, and it will be designing and building the Iter cooling towers and hot and cold basins.
Iter, under construction at Cadarache in southern France, is intended to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion power. It will be the world’s largest experimental fusion facility. Fusion is the process which powers the sun and the stars. When light atomic nuclei fuse together to form heavier ones, a large amount of energy is released.
The Iter project is a first-of-a-kind global collaboration. Europe will contribute 45 percent of its construction costs, while the other six members to the venture (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US), will contribute equally to the rest. The total cost of the project has been estimated at €15 billion.
