Recent Progress of ITER Construction

Abstract

The ITER project ^{1, 2)} was established in November 2006 by the ITER Agreement involving seven Members (China, the European Union including Switzerland, India, Japan, Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States of America). ITER is a critical step in the development of fusion energy: its role is to confirm the feasibility of exploiting magnetic confinement fusion for the production of energy for peaceful purposes by providing an integrated demonstration of the physics and technology required for a fusion power plant. At the core of the facility, the ITER tokamak will confine a plasma heated to temperatures in the region of 1–2×10⁸ K, in which deuterium-tritium fusion reactions will produce up to 500 MW of fusion power for periods ranging from several hundred to several thousand seconds. Extensive progress has been made in the on-site construction, the production of components for the ITER tokamak, plant and auxiliary systems, and in the preparations for on-site installation. Recently, a major update of the ITER baseline schedule and resource estimate has been undertaken. The revised schedule foresees an earliest technically achievable date for First Plasma of December 2025 and a target date for the transition to D/DT operation of late 2035. This report outlines the ITER project management and recent progress of tokamak components manufacturing and on-site construction activities of the ITER facility.