More than one million man-hours of work have been completed on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project in French Cadarache, the consortium behind the project has announced.
The first phase of the ITER project, developed by a consortium including Atkins, Assystem, Egis and Empresarios Agrupados is close to completion, with all major construction contracts set to be awarded by the end of this year.
Work on the world’s biggest experimental fusion facility started in 2007, with production is expected to start in 2020.
The machine is expected to demonstrate the principle of producing ten times more energy from the fusion process than is used to initiate it, designed to produce 500MW of output power from 50MW of input power.
“The fact we have spent a million man-hours on the first phase of the programme tells you just how big this project is,” said Martin Grant, chief executive officer of Atkins’ energy business.
“We have been designing the site structures while the science is still evolving which means we must be highly flexible at the same time as satisfying the most stringent nuclear safety standards.”
The Engage consortium has been working on the project since 2010 will keep the post until 2018.
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