The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is pledging $135 million to further develop and commercialize fusion technologies, the largest investment in fusion technology in the agency’s history.
The funding commitment, announced on April 8 by ARPA-E Director Conner Prochaska, extends over the next 18 months and will be spread across multiple programs, directed at “the toughest technical barriers to commercial fusion power,” ARPA-E said.
DOE considers fusion to be a potential long-term energy source that does not produce greenhouse gases and is necessary to help relieve a power grid under increasing demand from artificial intelligence, manufacturing, and digital infrastructure.
To date, ARPA-E has invested about $134 million in commercial fusion technologies, which the agency says has catalyzed more than $1.5 billion in private funding.
“The question is no longer whether fusion is possible. The question is how fast we get fusion-generated power on the grid, and whether America leads that achievement,” Prochaska said. “We are going after the hardest technical bottlenecks standing between fusion power and a commercially viable system, because that’s what this moment demands.”
The focus on fusion reflects the priorities of DOE’s new Fusion Science and Technology (FS&T) Roadmap, announced in October. DOE is aiming to have commercial fusion energy hit the nation’s power grid within the next decade, in what officials say is an effort to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive orders to support emerging energy technologies.
Among the areas that may be explored with the new funding are Advanced Plasma Heating and Driver Systems, which are lower-cost plasma heating and driver systems to reduce plant costs; and Next-Generation Fuel Cycles and Fuels, or advanced fuels and fueling techniques to boost power output and simplify the fusion fuel cycle.
When ARPA-E entered the fusion space in 2014, the agency said there were 12 fusion companies. Today, there are more than 50, many of which were spun out of ARPA-E-funded projects and research.
“ARPA-E helped build America’s fusion power industry by taking risks on radical ideas and building an innovative supply chain,” Prochaska said. “Today’s announcement is how we press our advantage.”