Author: Michael Paluszek

I attended the ARPA-E 2022 Fusion Annual Meeting at the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco. This is a meeting for all companies that have ARPA-E grants and are working on nuclear fusion technology. Below is the poster for our Princeton Field Reversed Configuration ARPA-E OPEN 2018 grant. The poster gives an overview of the technology and the latest results from the work.

Below is our ARPA-E GAMOW poster on power electronics. It includes work by Princeton Fusion Systems, Princeton University, Qorvo and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The first panel explains the benefits of wide bandgap semiconductors. The second panel shows the latest results on Class-E amplifiers for plasma heating. The next panel shows Qorvo’s latest 2 V SiC cascodes. The final panel shows the cooling systems being designed by NREL.

The meeting had two days of interesting talks by distinguished speakers. Dr. Robert Mumgaard of Commonwealth Fusion Systems talked about their work on advanced high-temperature superconducting magnets and the theory behind high field Tokamaks. Dennis Stone of NASA discussed NASA COTS programs. Dr. Wayne Sullivan of General Atomic talked about their research programs. General Atomics has been operating a Tokamak possibly longer than anyone else. We heard talks on the Centrifugal Mirror at the University of Maryland and WHAM, the high field mirror, at the University of Wisconsin. Andrew Holland of the Fusion Industry Association gave an overview of funding resources for fusion research. He said FIA had verified 31 companies that were developing fusion power technology. This is a huge change from just a few years ago when only large government entities were conducting fusion research.

We talked to several organizations in need of high voltage and high current power electronics. We plan to pivot our GAMOW work to meet the needs of these potentially near-term customers.

The meeting had breakout sessions in which we discussed funding for fusion research and how to help gain social acceptance for nuclear fusion power. Both are challenging.

Princeton Fusion Systems will have two booths at the virtual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit on May 24-27. One will be for our ARPA-E OPEN 2018 grant and the other for our recent awarded GAMOW power electronics grant. We’ll be at our booths, along with our team members from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, PPPL, United SiC and Princeton University, from 1:15 to 2:30 on Monday, 3:45 to 5:00 on Tuesday and 2:30 to 4:00 on Wednesday. Please come by to talk!

We’ll also be doing a Tech Demo: Next-Generation PFRC on Monday, May 24, 2021 2:05 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.​​​​​​​ You’ll find out about our innovative compact nuclear fusion reactor work.

The Summit will have all sorts of cutting edge technology from ARPA-E companies. There will be many interesting speakers including Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The Summit will also include breakout sections where you can meet other attendees.

The ARPA-E Summit is the energy event of the year. Don’t miss out!

The ARPA-E GAMOW program is underway. We’ll have a booth at the ARPA-E Summit May 24-27. We are looking for people in the fusion industry to let us know about their power electronics needs. Please go to our GAMOW page to send us a message.

Check out the ARPA-E Energy Brief featuring their Fusion Portfolio.

We discuss the Princeton Field Reversed Configuration machine. There are also great segments from other fusion researchers.

Princeton Fusion Systems announced today that it was awarded $1.1 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding will be used to develop advanced power electronics for the heating and control of fusion plasmas.

Princeton Fusion Systems received this competitive award from ARPA-E’s Galvanizing Advances in Market-aligned fusion for an Overabundance of Watts (GAMOW) program, working to close multiple fusion-specific technological gaps that will be needed to connect a net-energy-gain “fusion core,” once it is ready, to a deployable, commercially attractive fusion system. Princeton Fusion Systems joins 13 other teams in the $29M GAMOW program.

The team consists of Princeton Fusion Systems, Princeton University, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and United Silicon Carbide. Over the 30 month duration of the contract, the team will develop efficient, high-power electrical drivers for plasma heating, compression, and control. Wide-bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices and innovative amplifiers may speed up the development of fusion systems and reduce their eventual cost of electricity. Princeton Fusion Systems will develop prototype, high efficiency switching amplifiers using WBG SiC devices and amplifier boards that employ advanced cooling and digital control. The project will design, test, and qualify individual circuit boards as the building blocks for various short-pulse, long-pulse, and continuous-wave electrical-driver power supplies for fusion-energy systems.