Proxima Fusion

Stellarator enthusiasts unite! 💫 The Proxima team was delighted to host a summer BBQ with over a dozen friends and colleagues from the Garching branch of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics—discussing stellarators of all sorts, the ways we’re overcoming the limits of tokamaks, and how we’re accelerating the path to the first fusion power plants. Here’s to the next generation of #fusionenergy pioneers!

Honored to welcome to the Proxima Fusion offices in Munich Robert Schlögl and Jan Wörner from the Bavarian Fusion Expert Committee, as well as Andrea Lübcke and Cyril Stephanos from the German National Academy of Sciences. We have discussed how to best achieve the goals of the Bavarian Government and its "Mission Kernfusion" program. The race to commercial #fusionenergy brings exciting opportunities to build a new industry in Bavaria, and leveraging those opportunities will require facilitating public-private partnerships and deploying R&D funding for critical engineering solutions. Looking forward to continuing a productive conversation that serves the entire fusion ecosystem!

Proxima Fusion is thrilled to be awarded a €2.5M grant and an opportunity for €15M investment from the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) as part of the #EICAccelerator program! We are among the 68 #deeptech startups selected out of 969 applicants, judged on the criteria of excellence, impact, and risk level. The €17.5M award in blended financing is dedicated to the design of our net-energy #stellarator, and will involve a series of milestone deliverables grounded in sound engineering and solid science—critical for measuring progress in the global race to commercial #fusionenergy. Thanks to the EIC, we’re one step closer to our mission of building stellarators to power the future and leading Europe into a new era of #cleanenergy, for good. 🇪🇺⚡ Read more: https://lnkd.in/efmutNrw

While leading the development of the record-breaking W7-X stellarator at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Lutz Wegener (W7-X Head of Assembly) and Felix Schauer (W7-X Head of Cryogenics, then Head of Internal Components) couldn’t have known they would later mentor a team of physicists and engineers at Proxima Fusion. Together with Lutz and Felix, we're working to design and build the next generation of stellarators. Felix and Lutz have been advisors to Proxima since the very beginning of our journey, supporting us in engineering design, large-scale project planning, and industry partnerships. We’re grateful to have them on board and look forward to years of exciting progress together!

Championing a fusion-powered future in Europe 🇪🇺 Proxima Fusion was proud to participate in this week's EU Fusion Business Forum, bringing together #fusionenergy companies, suppliers, and industrial suppliers from across Europe. Proxima Co-Founder Lucio Milanese presented on opportunities within the growing fusion supply chain—including magnets, coil and intercoil support structures, and remote maintenance—as well as Proxima's path to commercial fusion power plants. As German Minister for Research and Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger stated in her keynote speech: "In Germany and Europe, we have strong technological leadership. Now is an ideal time to translate this leadership into commercial efforts to put fusion electricity on the grid."

It's an exciting time to be an integral part of the growing European fusion ecosystem! Co-Founder Lucio Milanese showcased Proxima's rapid team growth and technical progress during its first full year of operation at today's 5th Forum Fusion Germany in Berlin, attended by a record number of participants including representatives from ITER Organization and Fusion for Energy. This year's Forum also saw the first public presentation of the German fusion association ProFusion, of which Proxima Fusion is a founding member—as well as an address by German government officials, reiterating a commitment to €370M in funding for private-public fusion partnerships in Germany over the next four years. Together, we're building a robust #fusionenergy supply chain in Europe and paving the path toward a future powered by fusion.

Vor 60 Jahren haben wir einen Menschen auf den Mond geschossen, heute wollen wir das Sonnenfeuer auf die Erde holen. Und das im Land der Dichter und Denker. Today, I had the honour to participate in the expert hearing on fusion regulation at the Deutscher Bundestag. The race for the first fusion power plant has begun. Germany must urgently position itself to attract international investment and secure market access in an increasingly competitive #fusionenergy ecosystem — critical for the future of European energy resilience and energy security. Creating regulatory clarity is an important next step to illustrate the commitment of the German government to fusion energy, that comes at no budgetary costs. The U.S. and UK have demonstrated a fast path to regulatory clarity by setting specific timelines on regulation and clarifying basic responsibilities and the overarching regulatory approach before diving into details. At today’s hearing on a proposed legal framework for fusion power plants in Germany and Europe, I made the case that the German government should follow suit. You can watch my full statement to the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment here:  https://lnkd.in/d7D6CMr8

Fantastic to set up this collaboration! Very exciting to be here for the kick-off with Nicolò Riva, Robert Slade, Sofia Viarengo, Jaap Kosse, Bernhard Auchmann and the rest of the team at CHART-MagDev. Thanks also to Uglietti Davide, Nikolay Bykovskiy and Mattia Ortino for the tour of SULTAN and Mike Koratzinos for the intro to HTS accelerator magnets. And of course thank you to Andrea Gall, Robert Rudolph, Florian Gegier, Clemens Gähwiler and all the staff here for welcoming Proxima to Switzerland Innovation Park Innovaare and making the team feel right at home.

Today marks an important milestone for Proxima Fusion, as we signed a framework agreement with the PSI Paul Scherrer Institut to advance the development of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet technology, with applications for both #fusionenergy and particle physics research. This new long-term collaboration will begin with several members of the Proxima team relocating from Munich to Switzerland Innovation Park Innovaare in Villigen, where they will be supported by Proxima Co-Founder and Head of Engineering Martin Kubie and work closely with PSI scientists and engineers. This agreement is a testament to the strength of European innovation, and the advantages of cooperation between European engineers and scientists with a shared commitment to solving hard problems. Joining forces with PSI on the development of HTS magnets is a critical step toward Proxima’s goal of leading Europe into a new era of clean energy, for good. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ee5dV8cz Pictured below, Proxima Co-Founder and COO Lucio Milanese (left) and PSI Director Christian Rüegg (right) sign the new collaboration agreement.

A new paper from our partners at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) presents a novel approach to designing power plant-candidate stellarators, addressing the main outstanding physics limitations of Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X). In short: ➡️ The methods outlined in this paper have facilitated the development of Stable Quasi-Isodynamic Designs (SQuIDs) for stellarators. ➡️ SQuIDs are strong candidates for viable fusion power plants, thanks to their excellent plasma confinement and stability. ➡️ These advantages will allow us to overcome some of the most important remaining hurdles on the path toward commercial fusion. This publication—the latest in a series of ground-breaking works on QI stellarators by the Stellarator Concepts group at IPP—lays the foundation for an upcoming series of papers developed in collaboration between Proxima Fusion and the IPP that demonstrate the path to #fusionenergy through QI stellarators. Congratulations to Alan Goodman, Pavlos Xanthopoulos, Gabriel Plunk, Håkan Smith, Carolin Nührenberg, Craig Beidler, Sophia Henneberg, Gareth Roberg-Clark, Michael Drevlak, and Per Helander for the excellent work! Read the full paper: https://lnkd.in/evGxChBP