"Fusion 2040": New funding programme for the first fusion power plant in Germany
Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger has presented the funding programme "Fusion 2040 - Research on the way to the fusion power plant". She emphasised that nuclear fusion can provide a clean, reliable and affordable source of energy. Combined with the strong research landscape and industry in Germany, this offers the best conditions for the construction of fusion power plants.
"We want to build a fusion ecosystem consisting of industry, start-ups and science so that a fusion power plant can become a reality in Germany as quickly as possible. The fusion ecosystem is intended to bundle Germany's existing strengths and create synergies between the various players," explains Stark-Watzinger.
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research is already funding fusion research at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the Jülich Research Centre. The new programme complements this funding. In the first phase, technologies and materials for a fusion power plant are to be developed by the early 2030s. The second phase will focus on integration into a power plant design.
The programme promotes application-oriented collaborative research as a public-private partnership (PPP). Projects are to be carried out jointly by research institutions, universities and industry in order to transfer new findings to industry at an early stage.