**The first commercial fusion plant installed its first component last month ahead of plans to start generating energy by 2027.**
The SPARC tokamak, which is under construction in Massachusetts, US, aims to be the first to demonstrate net energy generation from fusion. It is hoped that despite its relatively small size, the plant could achieve up to 140MW of fusion power in 10-second bursts.
The donut-shaped fusion prototype will use powerful electromagnets to produce the right conditions for fusion energy, including an interior temperature surpassing 100 million degrees Celsius.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), the firm overseeing the project, installed SPARC’s first element in March – a disc-shaped stainless-steel construction called the cryostat base. The base was rolled onto tracks and lowered with a crane, before being fixed in place with bolts and grout.
“With the cryostat base now in place, we’ve begun building the heart of our fusion energy system,” said Samer Hamade, vice-president of projects at CFS. “This is a very visible example of how the CFS fusion energy project has shifted into a new phase – tokamak assembly. It’s really energising to see the first part of SPARC filling what was a circular hole in the floor – a true testament to the hard work and dedication of the team.”
To keep SPARC’s superconducting magnets cold enough to perform well, CFS houses them inside a larger chamber that insulates them from the outside world with a vacuum.
Outlining its plans in the coming months, CFS said it plans to “drop its D-shaped toroidal field magnets into two orange stands, insert SPARC’s vacuum vessel into the interior of those TF magnets, add the circular poloidal field magnets that loop around the structure, drop the cylindrical central solenoid magnets down the centre of the tokamak and seal the whole assembly with the cryostat sides and top”.
If SPARC successfully demonstrates that continued net fusion energy production is possible, then CFS plans to build further power plants based on the design in the early 2030s starting at a site in Virginia.
In February, a prototype fusion plant in France [achieved a milestone](https://eandt.theiet.org/2025/02/19/france-sets-new-fusion-energy-milestone-maintaining-plasma-reaction-1337-seconds) by maintaining a high-confinement plasma operation for 1,337 seconds – surpassing a recent Chinese record of 1,066 seconds.