17 out of 18 INFUSE public-private partnership awards go to FIA members

On Tuesday, July 25, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $4.6m for FY2023 INFUSE awards, further driving public-private partnerships between national labs & universities and industry to accelerate toward fusion commercialization.

17 out of 18 awards went to FIA members and affiliate members: Bruker OST, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Focused Energy, Gauss Fusion, HB11 Energy, Helion Energy, Kyoto Fusioneering, Thea Energy (formerly Princeton Stellarators), Realta Fusion, Stellarex, TAE Technologies, and Tokamak Energy.

You can see the full list of awards and the U.S. Department of Energy announcement here.

Within the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program was established in 2019 to promote public-private collaboration and accelerate fusion energy development. Awards are given to private industry to spend with national labs and universities. The program solicited proposals from the fusion industry and selected projects for one or two-year awards between $100,000 and $750,000 each, with a 20% (or greater) cost share from industry. This round saw the largest number of applications thus far. The next request for applications is expected to come out in January 2024.

“The latest round of INFUSE selections demonstrates the growing interest from private industry in partnering with national laboratories and U.S. universities. INFUSE is attracting interest from both fusion developers and from companies seeking to serve as their suppliers or partners. We are seeing this program evolve and continue to encourage contributions to a vibrant fusion ecosystem in the U.S.”

Jean Paul Allain, DOE Associate Director of Science for Fusion Energy Sciences

The Fusion Industry Association applauds the work of INFUSE to build cross-cutting partnerships towards fusion commercialization, and advocates for its further growth in coming years to match the need for fusion energy at scale.