(Image: Rosatom)

The delivery, from St Petersburg, was of equipment for the power supply system "without which it is impossible to obtain the first plasma at the reactor" and included "switching equipment, busbars and energy-absorbing resistors for power supply and protection of the superconducting magnetic system of the ITER reactor", which Rosatom said was the most expensive and complex of Russian obligations under the ITER project.

ITER is a major international project to build a tokamak fusion device in Cadarache, France, designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The goal of ITER is to operate at 500 MW (for at least 400 seconds continuously) with 50 MW of plasma heating power input. It appears that an additional 300 MWe of electricity input may be required in operation. No electricity will be generated at ITER.

Thirty five nations are collaborating to build ITER - the European Union is contributing almost half of the cost of its construction, while the other six members (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are contributing equally to the rest. Construction began in 2010 and the original 2018 first plasma target date was put back to 2025 by the ITER council in 2016. That date is set to be revised again in the next year.