On July 30, Helion Energy, a commercially controlled nuclear fusion company in the United States, announced on its official website that its first controlled nuclear fusion power plant, “Orion”, has started site construction, marking an important step in the process of connecting controllable nuclear fusion power to the power grid. The power plant is located in Qilan County, Washington. David Cotley, co-founder and CEO of Helion, said the launch of site construction has brought the vision of commercializing controlled nuclear fusion technology one step closer.
Helion is a world-renowned controlled nuclear fusion manufacturer. Its investors include the founders of Microsoft and OpenAI, etc. The company is committed to building the world’s first controlled nuclear fusion power plant. In February this year, Helion announced plans to build the world’s first controlled nuclear fusion power plant in Washington. In 2023, Helion signed a 50MW annual power purchase agreement with Microsoft, planning to start power supply in 2028.
It is reported that Helion adopts the field inverse-shaped (FRC) technical route of magnetic inertia constraints. Different from the tokamak technical route, the FRC structure is linear, the device is simple, the cost and operating cost are low. This technical route can directly generate electricity through the changes in the magnetic field generated by fusion, and the energy efficiency is higher. The construction cost is only 1/5~1/10 of the tokamak, and it is expected to be the first to achieve commercialization.
Companies with the same technical route as them in China include Hanhai Juneng, Xingneng Xuanguang, etc. On July 18 this year, the completion of the construction of the HHMAX-901 host and the plasma lighting ceremony were held, which is standardized that the domestic FRC controlled nuclear fusion technology has officially moved from the laboratory to the application end.
It is worth noting that many listed companies participated in the Hanhai Energy Gathering lighting ceremony, including Guoguang Electric, Xuguang Electronics, Wangzi New Materials, Yingjie Electric, etc. Among them, Yingjie Electric provided the controllable nuclear fusion device power supply to Hanhai Energy Gathering. Wangzi New Materials and Hanhai Energy signed a strategic cooperation agreement to help the commercialization of controlled nuclear fusion.
Guojin Securities said that the proportion of the value of the magnets of the controllable nuclear fusion device in the FRC technical route has decreased, but large-pulse power supplies are required to support plasma acceleration to supersonic collision and compression, which is highly dependent on power supplies, and the proportion of the value of the power system is expected to increase significantly.
