Imagine trying to hold a tiny, ultra-hot sun inside a bottle without it touching the sides or leaking out. This project creates a high-tech 'plug' for that bottle using magnets and radio waves to keep the heat trapped. By stopping the energy from escaping, they can finally make fusion power stable enough to run a city.
Nuclear fusion has been hindered by plasma instability and energy leakage. This prevents the technology from reaching a cost-competitive level for grid-scale energy production.
A system integrating magnetic mirrors, ambipolar plugging, and ponderomotive confinement. This setup is designed to increase energy confinement time for fusion reactors.
If you are a utility provider dealing with volatile fossil fuel prices — this project developed a fusion confinement system that aims for a competitive Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). This allows for a transition to zero-carbon, baseload power generation.
If you are a heavy manufacturer dealing with high carbon taxes and energy insecurity — this project developed a way to scale fusion reactors to a commercial stage. This provides a near-zero emission energy source to power massive industrial operations.
If you are a reactor developer dealing with plasma leakage and instability — this project developed a combination of magnetic mirrors and RF plugging. This improves energy confinement by two orders of magnitude.
The project aims to make fusion scalable to a reactor that delivers energy at a competitive Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE).
The project is moving from TRL2 to TRL4, meaning it is currently in the research and validation phase rather than full industrial scale.
The project intends to generate patents across three domains: magnetic mirrors, ambipolar plugging, and ponderomotive confinement, as well as their integration.
The project runs from 2024-11-01 to 2027-10-31 to advance the technology toward the commercial stage.
Based on available project data, the goal is to deliver fusion power to the grid to support climate neutrality and energy sovereignty.
The consortium is heavily weighted toward commercialization and technical implementation, with an industry ratio of 57% (4 industry partners out of 7). It balances academic research from KTH, KIPT, and UKAEA with the engineering capabilities of NFG and the innovation management of KIC SE, covering 5 countries.
Contact the Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan (KTH) project management office.
Contact SciTransfer for a detailed IP landscape analysis of the Novatron mirror fusion concept.
