Speaker
Pierluigi Bruzzone
(Swiss Plasma Center)
Description
A reliable and realistic cost estimate is of paramount importance for the management of large projects, to assist the budget and planning phases. In the case of DEMO, the cost estimate helps driving the selection among competing design options. The achievement of a target construction price < 2 B€ for a 500 MWe fusion power plant is a necessary condition in order to sell electricity to the market price. The magnet system makes up of ≈30% of the cost of a fusion device.
A cost estimate for the Toroidal Field (TF) coils starts from the unit cost of the basic materials (superconducting strand, copper, steel and insulation), whose market price is quite stable. The cost estimate for the assembly work (cabling, jacketing, winding) is linked to variables like the investment/mortgaging of specialized equipments, the liability of the contractor, the rejection rate and the extent of the Quality Assurance.
With the formulae proposed in this work, an estimate of the cost for different designs of the DEMO TF coils is tentatively done, highlighting where a potential exists for cost mitigation in the design and specification approaches. The cost of the Nb3Sn strand remain by far the largest cost driver for the TF coil system.
Co-authors
Antonio Della Corte
(Superconductivity Laboratory, ENEA, 00044 Frascati, Italy)
Kamil Sedlak
(Swiss Plasma Center, EPFL, Villigen PSI, Switzerland)
Luigi Muzzi
(Superconductivity Laboratory, ENEA, 00044 Frascati, Italy)
Pierluigi Bruzzone
(Swiss Plasma Center, EPFL, Villigen PSI, Switzerland)
