Vancouver's General Fusion hits milestone in plan for major UK test plant

Vancouver-based General Fusion achieves milestone in plan to build major UK test plant

Artistic rendering of General Fusion's test plant at the Culham Campus of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). (General Fusion)

One of the world’s most promising efforts to create clean, plentiful electricity through fusion has achieved a new milestone towards its goal of creating a proof of concept for commercialization.

General Fusion, based in Metro Vancouver, recently received its necessary local-level approval to build a significant test plant in the United Kingdom.

The plant has already received support from the UK government, but it also needed other approvals including permission from the South Oxfordshire District Council Planning Committee, which has now approved the project.

With the local-level approval, construction of General Fusion’s demonstration plant at the Culham Campus of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) — located just outside of Oxford, west of London — will begin this summer.

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The 113,000 sq ft facility designed and built by General Fusion will be leased to UKAEA upon its completion, anticipated for 2026. The plant will be fully operational by 2027.

This test plant will be built to 70% of the scale of future commercial power plants to demonstrate the fusion reaction used in a power plant setting, with temperatures reaching over 100,000,000°C. General Fusion has developed its own zero-carbon, magnetized target fusion energy technology, which could be a key tool to reduce emissions and slow down climate change.

“The UK has been a longstanding leader in fusion energy development. We are thrilled to join the Culham Campus and the UK’s Fusion Cluster, and anticipate creating 60 long-term jobs at the site,” said Greg Twinney, CEO of General Fusion, in a statement.

“The UKAEA welcomes this milestone as it aligns with our strategy to create clusters that accelerate innovation in fusion and related technologies, and support public-private partnerships to thrive. It also builds upon our heritage of hosting major fusion facilities here at our Culham Campus.”

Artistic rendering of General Fusion’s test plant at the Culham Campus of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). (General Fusion)

general fusion plant demonstration plant UKAEA

Artistic rendering of General Fusion’s test plant at the Culham Campus of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). (General Fusion)

The building that will contain the plant was designed by architects AL_A, led by Stirling Prize winner Amanda Levete and Ove Arup Engineers.

This project was first announced in 2021, with the construction cost reportedly anticipated to reach about US$400 million.

General Fusion has seen consecutive successful rounds of funding from institutional, sovereign, family office, and high-net-worth investors, including Bezos Expeditions, which is the personal investment entity for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. They also have the support of the federal governments of Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Within Metro Vancouver, up until 2021, General Fusion was based in Burnaby. In 2022, it relocated its global headquarters and research facilities to a Sea Island property owned by Vancouver International Airport near the South Terminal. This includes the use of a larger building previously used for aircraft engine maintenance and repair, which is now being used for research including the construction of a new demonstration prototype to support the company’s magnetized target fusion technology.

The relation to the airport’s space allows General Fusion to more than quadruple its workforce over the coming years from 140 employees in 2021. As of late 2022, it had over 200 employees.

General Fusion also marked its 20th anniversary in 2022, the same year it achieved the testing milestone of successfully demonstrating plasma and compression systems to support its fusion reaction.

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