Korea and ITER sign for AC/DC converters
17 Mar 2011
Korea now has committed about 83 percent of its in-kind contributions to ITER.
On Monday, 14 March, ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima and the Head of the Korean Domestic Agency, Kijung Jung, signed Procurement Arrangement number 52 for the AC/DC converters feeding ITER's magnetic coils. The components supplied by Korea will play an essential role to the plasma initiation, ohmic heating, plasma control, and for the full integration of the entire coil power supply system.
The ITER coil power supply system will likely be the world's largest high current power conversion plant (~2GVA) with the innovative technology and challenges that many of them will be the pioneer applications on ITER Project.
Korea is contributing 37.3 percent of this procurement, 62.7 percent will be procured by China. "For us this is a big step forward," Kijung Jung said after the signing. "Korea has now committed about 83 percent of its in-kind contributions to ITER." In manufacturing the powerful converters, ITER Korea will build on its experience gained in developing the converter systems for the Korean KSTAR tokamak.
The 1/6 scale converter unit, manufactured and tested at the Korean Domestic Agency.
"I am convinced that we will deliver good food for ITER and in this way ensure a long and healthy life for the machine," Jung said. "Our joy over achieving this milestone is only diminished by the tragic events in Japan. Our feelings are with the people there."