The Department of Energy is funding 10 private-public partnership projects to help push fusion energy development forward.
Industry partners have committed a 20 percent cost share of the awards, which were granted through the DOE Office of Science’s Innovation Network for Fusion Energy program, the agency said Tuesday.
DOE is distributing one- or two-year awards worth between $50,000 and $500,000, bringing the cumulative funding value to $2.3 million. They will team up their national laboratories with companies including General Atomics, Tokamak, Focused Energy, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Energy Driven Technologies, Princeton Stellarators, and Type One Energy.
The initiative comes a month after researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved the first fusion ignition in a laboratory setting.
“We were elated when the team at Livermore delivered the news that they had achieved fusion ignition, and we knew that was just the beginning,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. “The companies and DOE scientists will build on advances from the National Labs with the entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector to advance our understanding of fusion.”
