The aim of this competition is to encourage innovation in the fusion industry through the use of novel and innovative heating and cooling systems, materials, manufacturing and technologies.

Your project must develop solutions to fusion energy challenges in two key priority areas identified by the UK Atomic Energy Authority:

1. Driving up fusion power plant performance with innovative heating and cooling systems

2. Improving fusion power plant availability with novel fusion materials, technology, and manufacture

Your solution must be developed in the UK for use within the UK.

In phase 1 you must demonstrate the feasibility of your project, in line with the specific themes.

We will give preference to applications which:

• help the innovation be formally accepted for future use in a fusion plant environment, for example by obtaining relevant regulatory certificates or approvals during phase 2
• offer innovations which consider existing infrastructure and potential interfaces

Your proposal must:

• reduce the risk involved in the take up of new technologies
• outline plans to accelerate time to market
• be pre-commercial
• explain the rationale for the solution and describe the expected impact
• define how the proposed solution would enable and support the delivery of sustainable fusion power plants
• assign at least 2 technical milestones where performance is reviewed in order to release funds
• demonstrate a clear plan for commercialisation with a route to market for affordable, developed solutions
• describe how solutions can be tested in a representative or real world setting as part of phase 2
• explain how any potentially negative outcomes would be managed, such as on the environment or society
• demonstrate how you will work with at least one potential future customer throughout your project

Your solution must:

• be based on sound fundamental technical principles
• be innovative
• be practical and deliverable
• take affordability into consideration
• demonstrate the potential for cost-effectiveness
• integrate with existing systems where necessary
• consider user experience throughout the design and development process

At this stage contracts will be given for phase 1 only.

You must define your goals in your application and outline your plan for phase 2. This is part of the full commercial implementation in your phase 1 application.

You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.

In phase 2 we will ask successful applicants from phase 1 to develop and demonstrate a working prototype in a real-world environment.

Specific themes

Your project must focus on one of these 2 themes:

Driving up fusion power plant performance with innovative heating and cooling systems.

Projects can focus on one or more of the following under this theme:

Microwave heating challenges:

• high power, long pulse microwave sources with high electrical efficiency (greater than or equal to 55%)
• development of special waveguide components, for example, diamond window assemblies, power monitors, expansion units, vacuum pumping access
• improvements on the high voltage power supplies (50kV) for reduced voltage ripple in a compact assembly while maintaining high electrical efficiency (greater than or equal to 98%)
• development of optical mirrors for evacuation of high thermal loads (approximately 5MW/m2)
• high precision optical alignment assemblies for the free space to waveguide coupling

Neutral particle beam heating challenges:

• negative ion beam system with high electrical efficiency (greater than 60%)
• improved beam neutralisation efficiency, for example, Plasma or Laser Neutralisers
• development of residual ion energy recovery.
• improved negative ion source efficiency with caesium free operation
• reduction in scale; improved ion optics, source uniformity and power handling to reduce size of components
• development of actively cooled high heat flux components (approximately 5-10 MW/m2) with reactor relevant materials
• development of fault tolerant 1-2MV fast switching power supply systems with high electrical efficiency
• development of vacuum pumping systems with pumping speeds of millions of litres per second which allow continuous operation

Reactor high heat flux components:

• jet impingement cooling technology transfer
• sCO2 as coolant
• diamond components for heat dispersion
• novel discrete limiter designs, for example, vaporisation layers, speed of maintenance or increased heat flux performance

Improving fusion power plant availability with novel fusion materials, technology, and manufacture

Projects can focus on one or more of the following under this theme:

• fusion grade steels, for example, reduced activation Ferritic or Martensitic (RAFM) development, including, Castable Nanostructured Alloys (CNAs), and Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) steels
• liquid Metal testing, for example Li, PbLi and Pb
• scalable or large volume manufacture of tritium breeder materials
• irradiation resilient joining materials and processes, for example, Tungsten based armour materials, CuCrZr or vacuum vessel ports including fused silica, Mo, MgAl2O4, ZnS, ZnSe
• novel manufacture of multi-metre complex structures and components for fusion environments testing and evaluation
• scalable or large volume manufacture of neutron shielding materials
• manufacture of complex geometry components in refractory metals
• additive manufacture for non-water coolant components
• anti-corrosion coatings or novel application methods of corrosion and tritium barrier coatings for complex geometry components
• development of on-line activation measurements
• in situ health monitoring of fusion reactor components
• novel inspection of interfaces in complex multi-material fusion components
• radiation hard improvements for fusion equipment and plant
• novel energy conversion technology
• high temperature superconductors
• composite materials such as silicon carbide fibre, reinforced silicon carbide
• novel materials for radiation hard electronic components