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Design of demo fusion plant under way Europe Nuclear power
Following its record-breaking results earlier this year*, Europe’s research consortium for fusion energy EUROfusion has announced the start of conceptual design activities for Europe’s first demonstration fusion power plant DEMO (pictured). The announcement was made at a EUROfusion event on 5 July held to celebrate its accomplishments, including the fusion energy record revealed by EUROfusion researchers in February, and to present the research plans that are intended to get the global fusion experiment ITER started in earnest.
DEMO is a first-of-its-kind fusion device, due to come into operation around the middle of this century, and is intended to demonstrate the net production of 300 to 500 MWe of fusion energy for the grid. This month’s Horizon EUROfusion event is the first in a planned annual series where the consortium shares progress made, and the steps ahead to realise fusion energy. *In February 2022 researchers from the EUROfusion consortium – which consists of 4800 experts, students and staff from across Europe, and is co-funded by the European Commission – used the Joint European Torus device to release a record
59 MJ of sustained fusion energy. This achievement on JET, located at the UK Atomic Energy Authority site in Oxford, and the largest and most powerful operational tokamak in the world, more than doubled the previous fusion energy record of 21.7 MJ set there in 1997. It is part of a dedicated experimental campaign designed by EUROfusion to test over two decades’ worth of advances in fusion and optimally prepare for the start of the ITER project, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor being developed at Saint-Paul-Les-Durance, in Provence in southern France.
Germany to reactivate hard coal plants Germany Fossil fuels
Germany’s parliament set in motion on 13 July an emergency regulation that would allow operators of some hard coal plants temporarily to reactivate their units to help reduce natural gas consumption in the power sector, reports Tagesspiegel Background. Coal plants, which had successfully applied in phase-out tenders under the country’s coal exit scheme to stop producing electricity by 2022 or 2023, could thus return to the market as soon as the regulation takes effect, according to economy ministry sources. In addition, hard coal-fired and oil fired power plants that are already in the grid reserve would also be able to return to the grid. According to the draft regulation, operators must ensure that plants are technically restored to a condition that allows them to operate permanently on the electricity market, with the costs incurred being reimbursed. The scheme is temporary, and would end on 30 April 2023. Operators are free to decide whether they want to reactivate the plants, but in view of high power prices, experts expect them to do so.
The economy ministry is also preparing a
similar regulation for lignite power plants, which can only participate in the market if the capacity of hard coal and oil power plants is insufficient to replace gas in the power sector. This includes lignite plants from the security standby, which for now may only be restarted in extreme emergencies.
Other measures
The German government has taken several steps recently in response to the emergency situation created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the potential damage to climate change mitigation measures.
On 5 July it announced its intention to amend legislation that would allow the state to take stakes in companies severely affected by rising costs of imported fossil gas, such as Europe’s largest importer of Russian gas, Uniper. The cabinet adopted draft bills which now have to be debated and decided by parliament. The energy crisis, exacerbated by Russia’s war against Ukraine, means that some German energy companies crucial to supply security are struggling. Possible state support for Uniper – Europe’s largest buyer of Russian fossil gas – is generally considered the right solution because
an insolvency would trigger a domino effect and shake up the entire German gas industry. The government intends also to amend its energy transition laws to weaken its 2035 renewables target. The ruling coalition parties have dropped the target of ‘near 100 % renewables in the power grid by 2035’ but agreed on more favourable conditions for solar PV and strict wind power expansion targets for laggard states in their final negotiations on the country’s landmark 2022 energy transition reforms.
Now Germany is facing uncertainty over Russian gas supplies via Nord Stream. On 11 July Gazprom halted flows almost entirely through the pipeline as ten days of planned maintenance work began. The German government is bracing itself for a potentially permanent halt or reduction of supplies. The maintenance of the pipeline, which directly connects Russia and Germany, is performed around the same time every year. It is possible, said economy minister Robert Habeck, that once the work is done, Russia will make a political decision to halt supplies permanently. This could lead, he said, to severe shortages next winter.
www.modernpowersystems.com | July/August 2022 | 5
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