Fusion energy start-up Focused Energy and German energy company RWE have signed an agreement to build a 1GW fusion power plant at the former Biblis nuclear power plant site in Hesse, Germany, according to Reuters.
Fusion is a potential source of almost limitless clean energy, which is seen as vital for energy security and the climate crisis. It uses the same process that powers the Sun by combining two forms of hydrogen and heating them at extreme temperatures.
There is currently a worldwide race towards commercialising fusion; however, given the infrastructure needed to produce this energy on a large scale, it is widely considered that it will not form part of our energy mix in the near future.
The agreement between Focused Energy and RWE will see a fusion pilot plant built at the Biblis site by 2035.
RWE has been decommissioning and dismantling the two-unit plant since 2017. First commissioned in 1974, it is Germany’s oldest nuclear plant. It was shut indefinitely in 2011 as a result of Berlin’s decision to exit nuclear power.
Focused Energy, a technology spin-off from the Technical University of Darmstadt and National Energetics with offices in both San Francisco and Darmstadt, Germany, aims to develop commercial scale fusion energy using an approach based on direct-drive laser inertial fusion.
This approach uses a focused proton beam to ignite millimetre-scale sphere deuterium/tritium fuel targets to create fusion reactions. The company alleges that its technique is the first to have proven that net-positive fusion power is possible, though there are still significant hurdles to overcome.
Focused Energy’s CEO Scott Mercer told Reuters in an interview that this non-binding agreement with RWE “would be the beginning and the learning lesson towards building a supply chain for what would eventually be global deployment”.
Mercer said the combination of interest in fusion from RWE, Germany’s coalition government and Hesse could provide a partnership to make its laser-driven project a reality.
“The seriousness of the federal government in Germany towards pursuing fusion as part of the energy mix is, frankly, two orders of magnitude higher than it has been in the US,” said Mercer.
He told Reuters that the 1GW pilot plant will use highly efficient solid-state lasers.
A spokesperson from RWE told Reuters that it wants to contribute “by providing our infrastructure at the Biblis site and our experience as an operator of nuclear facilities to advance fusion technology in Germany”.
In the UK, ministers have pledged £410m to support the rapid development of fusion energy technology in the country, with the hope that a prototype plant could be built by 2040.
In the meantime, February 2025 saw France achieve a milestone in the development of fusion energy, having maintained a high-confinement plasma operation for 1,337 seconds – surpassing the recent Chinese record of 1,066 seconds.