A consortium of Franco-German firms has landed a £450million contract to design and maintain buildings at the world’s biggest experimental fusion facility.
The consortium, consisting Cofely Axima, Cofely Endel, GDF Suez and M+W Group, has been awarded a six-year contract at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in France’s Bouches-du-Rhone department.
The contract covers the design, engineering, construction and maintenance of heating, air conditioning, electrical and mechanical systems at the site’s 13 buildings, including the Tokamak complex which will house the reactor.
It also includes instrumentation and control systems, fluid networks, fire detection and prevention systems, and command and control instruments.
Following a one-year engineering phase, work is scheduled to start in September 2014.
Construction of the buildings will take place over five years with the majority of work being carried out in 2016, requiring a 450-person workforce. The consortium anticipates hiring an additional 100 staff.
The ITER project is an international research project involving 35 countries, which aims to prove that the fusion of two categories of hydrogen – deuterium and tritium – in the Tokamak reactor can become a viable energy source and produce electricity.
Europe’s contribution, worth an estimated EU6.6billion, is managed by Fusion For Energy.
Work on the facility started in 2007, with production expected to begin by 2020.