Research & Development

Iter Signs €174M Assembly And Installation Contract With UK-Led Momentum JV

By David Dalton
28 June 2016

28 Jun (NucNet): The Iter (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) Organisation has signed a €174m ($192m) contract with the Momentum joint venture for the management and coordination of the assembly and installation of the Iter tokamak and associated plant systems. A statement said the contract, known as a management-as-agent (CMA) contract, is for 10 years with an option for a three-year extension. The Momentum joint venture is led by UK-based multinational Amec Foster Wheeler with Assystem of France and South Korea’s Kepco Engineering and Construction Company. Iter said Momentum will play “a vital role” in the project to build the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor at Cadarache in France. Bernard Bigot, director-general of the Iter Organisation, said the role of the CMA is central to the success of the €15bn Iter project. He said because fusion holds so much potential as an environmentally clean and virtually limitless, safe source of energy, the stakes of success for the seven Iter members are very high.” Momentum will manage and coordinate the assembly and installation of more than one million components for the Iter reactor. At its centre is the world’s largest tokamak, an experimental machine designed to harness the energy of fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the sun. Earlier this month the Iter Council approved an updated schedule for the project which identifies the date of first plasma as December 2025, about five years later than originally planned. The seven Iter members – China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US – will share of the cost of project construction, operation and decommissioning, and also share in the experimental results and any intellectual property generated by the project.

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