Steady state network

US ITER completes deliveries

9 Oct 2017 - Jeanne Jackson DeVoe, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), with assistance from the Department of Energy's Princeton Site Office and the US ITER Project Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, completed a $34 million, five-year project on behalf of US ITER to provide three-quarters of the components for the steady-state electrical network at ITER, the international fusion experiment site in France.

The SSEN project was a complex enterprise. On behalf of US ITER, PPPL researched potential suppliers, solicited and accepted bids, and oversaw the production and testing of electrical components in 16 separate packages worth a total of about $30 million. (Pictured: a high voltage test lab for factory acceptance tests of medium voltage components.)

The arrival of six truckloads of electrical supplies at ITER on 2 October brings to a successful conclusion a massive project that will provide 120 megawatts of power—enough to light up a small city—to the ITER installation in France.

US ITER is providing three-quarters of the components for the steady-state electrical network (SSEN), which provides electricity for the lights, pumps, computers, heating, ventilation and air conditioning; the European Union is providing the other 25 percent. The ITER Organization connected the first US-sourced transformer to France's electrical grid in March.

The latest shipment was the 35th and final delivery of equipment from companies all over the world, including from the United States, over the past three years.

The six trucks carried a total of 63 crates of uninterruptible power supply equipment weighing 107 metric tons. The trucks took a seven-hour, 452-mile journey from Gutor UPS and Power Conversion in Wettingen, Switzerland, northwest of Zurich, to an ITER storage facility in Port-Saint-Louis-Du-Rhône, France. The equipment will eventually be used to provide emergency power to critical ITER systems in the event of a power outage.

"This represents the culmination of a very complex series of technical specifications and global purchases, and we are grateful to the entire PPPL team and their vendors for outstanding commitment and performance," said Ned Sauthoff, director of the US ITER Project Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where all US contributions to ITER are managed for the US Department of Energy's Office of Science.

A separate electrical system for the pulsed power electrical network, procured by China, will power the ITER Tokamak.

The first SSEN delivery in 2014 was among the first plant components to be delivered to the ITER site. The SSEN project is now one of the first US packages to be completed in its entirety, Neilson said. He noted that the final shipment arrived well ahead of deadline.

See the full report on the Princeton University website.

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