ITER Organization and Korean Domestic Agency sign TF Conductor Procurement Arrangement

The procurement and thus the manufacturing of the ITER magnets took a big leap forward on 7 May, when Kaname Ikeda, Director-General of the ITER Organization, and Gyung- Su Lee, Head of the Korean Domestic Agency established by the Korean government in September 2007, signed the Procurement Arrangement (PA) for the superconductors—the essential part of ITER's superconducting Toroidal Field magnets.

Most of the components that will make up ITER are to be manufactured by each of the seven participating countries and contributed in-kind through their Domestic Agencies. ITER Korea is the fourth Domestic Agency following Japan, Europe and the Russian Federation to have signed the Procurement Arrangement for the TF conductors. ITER Korea is responsible for 20.18 % of the total scope of the TF conductors. Today, 84.67 % of the total scope for the ITER TF conductors (about EUR 273 million) has been allocated.

"For ITER Korea, the TF Conductor PA is the first Procurement Arrangement signed," Gyung- Su Lee explained. "Therefore it has very important symbolic meaning as with this the Korean ITER project is entering the construction phase."

The signing ceremony was received by many fusion scientists and engineers here in Korea as a very significant event because of the successful testing of the KSTAR TF magnet systems last week with ITER-like Nb3Sn superconducting cables demonstrating the quality of the Korean-produced Nb3Sn superconducting technology to the world."