ITER Industry Day

The “ITER Industry Day” took place at the Brno Exhibition Centre on 7th October 2019, as a part of the International Engineering Fair. The seminar, intended to present the ITER project and the possibilities for industrial companies in the Czech Republic to participate in the ITER technology procurements, was opened by Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček and Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Research at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports Pavel Doleček. The meeting was attended by 50 participants from 35 institutions.

ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is being built in Cadarache, southern France, with the participation of the EU, USA, China, India, Japan, Korea and Russia, with the aim of developing a power plant based on fusion of hydrogen isotope nuclei. Future fusion power plants shall, therefore, be environmentally clean and practically inexhaustible energy source. The Czech Republic participates in the construction of ITER due to its membership in EURATOM (European Atomic Energy Community) through the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy. Researchers from the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Research Centre Řež s.r.o. participate in the implementation of the ITER project in the Czech Republic too. Other experts are also prepared at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering of Czech Technical University in Prague and the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University.

It is possible to participate in the tenders for technological supplies for the construction of ITER in two ways. The first one are the procurements managed by the ITER Organisation directly, the second way is via the European Joint Undertaking for ITER and the Development of Fusion Energy (F4E). Stories of successful Czech deliveries to the ITER construction were presented at the seminar – the development of magnetic sensors performed at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the “HELCZA” project implemented by the Research Centre Řež s.r.o.

Altogether € 6 billion has already been invested in the construction of ITER in Europe. The ITER project is 65% complete and continues at an average rate of 0.7 % per month. In the forthcoming years, more tenders of almost € 3.8 billion value will be launched in the areas such as: neutral beams (€ 120 million, in 2020), buildings (€ 700 million, in 2020), microwave antennas (€ 60 million, in 2021), in-vessel (€ 600 million, in 2021), diagnostics (€ 900 million, in 2022) and cryogenics (€ 180 million, in 2023). With total planned costs of more than € 20 billion, the ITER project is the second most costly project worldwide, after the International Space Station (ISS).

Construction site of ITER – International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor