A challenging assignment

Would the youngest Section Leader at the ITER Organization please step forward? Jun Tao, 39, is the newly-appointed Section Leader for Coil Power Supply. He's taken on responsibility for a critical plant system at a critical time; four procurement packages are scheduled to be signed in his Section before year's end, representing approximately160 kIUA of value.
 
"We're a small team working to very tight deadlines," said Jun, during a break from this week's coil power supply conceptual design review. "For this important system, we must deliver a very reliable, deliverable design to the Domestic Agencies involved with procurement. We need to uncover any issues at this stage, before moving on to the next design level. During this week's review, we have received very valuable advice."

 

The coil power system at ITER will be essential to successful operation, providing power to the ITER magnet coils for plasma initiation and control, and protection for the magnets against quenches. "ITER will be a very unique and challenging system, with many 'firsts,'" stresses Jun. "Fast discharge units capable of continuously carrying and interrupting DC current up to 68 kA at 10kV have never been built before. And ITER's AC/DC conversion plant and reactive power compensation system will among the largest of their kind."

 

Since his student days in China, Jun admits that he's been fascinated by tokamak power supplies. He earned an undergraduate and Master's degree in power electronics, and completed a PhD on "Power Supplies for Tokamak Systems" before joining the EAST Tokamak project in 1995. At EAST, Jun was responsible for the reactive power compensation system, and saw the development effort through design, procurement, installation and commissioning.

 

In Garching, Germany, where he was collaborating with the coil power supply team for the ASDEX Upgrade, he learned—with excitement—that China had joined the ITER Project. Jun joined the Chinese Participating Team for ITER, before arriving at Cadarache as power electronic engineer in 2007.

 

Jun's experience with tokamak coil power supply systems makes him particularly well-suited to the challenges ahead. Can this challenging system be built? "Yes!" says Jun, without hesitation. "The Domestic Agencies involved with this procurement—China, Korea and Russia—all have experience with tokamak coil power supply systems. Together, we'll succeed!"