Overview of the DEMO staged design approach in Europe

Abstract

This paper describes the status of the pre-conceptual design activities in Europe to advance the technical basis of the design of a DEMOnstration Fusion Power Plant (DEMO) to come in operation around the middle of this century with the main aims of demonstrating the production of few hundred MWs of net electricity, the feasibility of operation with a closedtritium fuel cycle, and maintenance systems capable of achieving adequate plant availability. This is expected to benefit as much as possible from the ITER experience, in terms of design, licensing, and construction. Emphasis is on an integrated design approach, based on system engineering, which provides a clear path for urgent R&D and addresses the main design integration issues by taking account critical systems interdependencies and inherent uncertainties of important design assumptions (physics and technology). A design readiness evaluation, together with a technology maturation and down selection strategy are planned through structured and transparent Gate Reviews. By embedding industry experience in the design from the beginning it will ensure that early attention is given to technology readiness and industrial feasibility, costs, maintenance, power conversion, nuclear safety and licensing aspects.

Conceptual Design of the Beamline for the DTT Neutral Beam Injector following a Double Beam Source Design Approach

“…The Divertor Tokamak Test facility (DTT) aims at exploring alternative power exhaust solutions for the machines that will follow ITER [3,4], in particular the demonstrative power plant DEMO that is currently in the preconceptual design phase [5]. Namely, the principal objective of DTT is to mitigate the risk of a difficult extrapolation to a fusion reactor of the conventional divertor based on detached conditions, under test for ITER.…”

EU DEMO EC equatorial launcher pre-conceptual performance studies

“…Besides several theoretical studies are done on e.g. steady-state options like Flexi-DEMO [4] or even negative triangularity, just to mention some [5]. The reference scenario for the EU DEMO is a 2 h pulsed machine with a duty cycle pulse/dwell ratio of 2 hours / 10 min and ~18 MA of plasma current.…”

Electrical Loads and Power Systems for the DEMO Nuclear Fusion Project

“…2 The powers reported for the H&CD systems (PBSs 30, 31 and 32) were estimated for the reference solution with related efficiencies (see Section 5.3). 3 Since the powers absorbed by these PBSs are not constant, their peak powers are reported. While the PPEN loads (PBSs 30, 31, 32 and 82) may be very variable, the load of PBS 50 is reduced to 20% in some phases as described in Section 5.5.…”

“…EU-DEMO (the DEMOnstration fusion power reactor proposed by the European Union), or simply DEMO, is a unique European project, as it will be the first demonstrative nuclear fusion power plant able to produce and distribute electrical power throughout Europe, thanks to a connection with the European High Voltage (HV) electrical grid (typically at 400 kV) [1][2][3].…”