Commonwealth Fusion Systems to site first fusion plant in Virginia

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has selected the James River Industrial Park in Chesterfield County, Virginia to site its planned world first grid-scale fusion power plant.

The proposed site near to Virginia’s capital Richmond was selected after a search globally and is currently owned by Dominion Energy Virginia.

As part of the effort, CFS has reached an agreement with Dominion Energy Virginia to provide non-financial collaboration, including development and technical expertise as well as leasing rights for the proposed site.

“This is a historic moment. In the early 2030s, all eyes will be on the Richmond region and more specifically Chesterfield County, Virginia, as the birthplace of commercial fusion energy,” promises Bob Mumgaard, CEO and co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

“Virginia emerged as a strong partner as they look to implement innovative solutions for both reliable electricity and clean forms of power. We are pleased to collaborate with Dominion Energy.”

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CFS intends to independently finance, build, own and operate the grid-scale fusion plant, known as ARC, with a generation capacity of around 400MW.

Currently CFS is completing development of its demonstration fusion machine, SPARC, at its headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts.

SPARC, a tokamak with high temperature superconducting magnets, is expected to produce its first plasma in 2026 and net fusion energy shortly after to demonstrate a commercially relevant design that will produce more power than consumed.

With the core technology refined in SPARC, the way should be paved for ARC, which is expected to deliver power to the grid in the early 2030s.

Edward H. Baine, President of Dominion Energy Virginia, describes CFS as the clear industry leader in advancing the energy potential of fusion.

“Our customers’ growing needs for reliable, carbon-free power benefits from as diverse a menu of power generation options as possible, and in that spirit, we are delighted to assist CFS in their efforts.”

High temperature superconducting magnets

Part of SPARC’s ‘secret sauce’ is the in-house developed high temperature superconducting magnets, which enable stronger magnetic fields and a more compact and thus lower cost design.

In November CFS announced successful testing of its central solenoid model coil, which paired with similar tests with the toroidal model field coil in 2021, validates the two types of magnets needed for SPARC.

CFS also has validated its high temperature superconducting cable technology, named PIT VIPER, with internal electrical insulation to minimise heating when rapidly ramping current in an magnet.

In the tests, the electrical current was ramped up to 50,000A, the maximum planned for SPARC, which was used to create a 5.7T magnetic field, about 100,000 times the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Following the first ARC, CFS anticipates building potentially thousands more, with each about the size of a big-box store with about the same site needs.