Google and RWE invest in fusion project in Europe

COMMERCIAL fusion energy in Europe has made one large leap in financial confidence after Proxima Fusion secured €411m (US$470m) in a funding round, with Google and energy firm RWE as strategic investors.

The investment has brought the valuation of the German-owned company to €2.4bn ($2.7bn), making it the “best-funded” fusion company in Europe.

Proxima will use this money to deliver its Alpha Alliance demonstrator project, which it announced earlier this year.

Led by Proxima in partnership with the state of Bavaria, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and RWE, Alpha is an international project to develop a demonstrator fusion plant to provide the blue-print for commercial-scale fusion plants that will be deployed across Europe.

Francesco Sciortino, CEO of Proxima Fusion, said: “Europe is racing with the United States and China to get to the first fusion power plant. Proxima’s financing demonstrates that Europe can not only invent breakthrough technologies, but also build globally competitive companies around them. Investors recognise both the urgency and the opportunity of what we're doing and are backing us to develop a generational energy technology company.”

Proxima’s demonstrator plant will be based on stellarator technology, which has been researched extensively in the US, and works by confining fusion plasma using powerful external magnets.

The company said that the funding will be used for the completion of the Stellarator Model Coil, expansion of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cable and magnet production, and continued development of the engineering and manufacturing systems required for stellarators.

The Alpha project is expected to begin operational testing in 2031, paving the way for the development of its commercial Stellaris power plant in 2040.