Virginia is for fusion lovers.
Today, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) announced the location for our first fusion energy power plant, ARC. We’ll build it in Chesterfield County, Virginia, an area near Richmond that has a growing economy, skilled workforce, and a big appetite for clean, firm energy.
This will mark the first time fusion power will be made available in the world at grid scale. We’ll plug 400 megawatts of steady fusion power into the state’s electrical grid starting in the early 2030s. We expect ARC will create hundreds of jobs to build and operate the power plant. We’re pleased by the reception we’ve had so far, and we’re looking forward to more engagement with our neighbors and the surrounding community.
The company is deep into building SPARC, a machine called a tokamak that’ll demonstrate net fusion energy, a milestone called Q>1. Our next act is financing, building, owning, and operating the ARC power plant — a big step after that to deliver fusion energy’s promise. Fusion is the last energy source humanity needs, with cheap and abundant fuel, inherently safe operations, and no greenhouse gas emissions. Now ARC has a place to happen.
Nothing occurs overnight in fusion, even at the pace we’re running. To meet our goals we have to do things in parallel, always setting up the next activity while we finish the one we’re working on. Even back in 2018, when I and my five colleagues from MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center co-founded Commonwealth Fusion Systems, we were laser focused on bringing commercial fusion energy to the world as fast as possible. Then, most of our challenges were developing an entire new magnet technology to enable commercially relevant fusion machines based on proven science. We got that done in record time in 2021. While part of the team was inventing magnets, others were designing SPARC. Only by doing things in parallel could we have started its construction as soon as the magnets were demonstrated. Three years later, SPARC is deep into construction and we have deep, broad teams expert in everything from welding and materials engineering to supply chain and commercialization. While we’ve been building SPARC, we’ve been quietly laying the groundwork for ARC so that we’re ready to go as soon as possible after SPARC hits Q>1. This is the cycle that needs to happen to innovate at speed and scale.
Surprisingly, the longest lead time part of building a power plant is selecting the actual physical location it is going to be built. Permits need to be filed, the grid needs to be made ready, the ground needs to be leveled — all before anything remotely related to fusion happens. We learned this in SPARC where we selected the site back in early 2021. A power plant takes even longer. Thus, to keep our schedule of the fastest path to fusion energy on the grid, we’ve been looking for a site for ARC for the last two years. Before selecting the site in Chesterfield County, Virginia, for the first ARC, we evaluated more than 100 locations around the world, performed due-diligence scrutiny, and talked with hundreds of key stakeholders.
We selected this site because it has all the things one would want for the site for the first commercial fusion power plant. It’s in a state and county that has welcomed us. It can put the power to good use. It has a workforce that is capable and eager. The physical site is big enough, flat enough, and near good transportation. It has a connection to the grid after a coal power plant retired. And it’s accessible so the world can come and visit.
We’re not alone in this work. We’ve agreed to lease the ARC site from Dominion Energy Virginia. Dominion will provide us with development and technical expertise while we’ll provide them with knowledge about how to build and operate fusion power plants. We’ve had extremely productive collaboration with officials across the state. We’re excited to continue all this, building on the foundations we’ve established before this announcement. All this is a powerful combination that will enable the best possible shot at getting fusion on the grid.
There’s plenty of work left to do. The decision on the ARC site sharpens that work. It’s invigorating to have a target — a physical location — where we plan to manifest the next phase of an entire new industry based on a new technology. There will be bumps in the road, and things won’t change overnight, but the designers and planners can now go from a general notion to a specific location for the next chapter in the fusion journey.
This ARC plant in Virginia is the first of thousands of fusion power plants we plan to put on the grid as part of our mission to deliver fusion energy with the urgency the energy transition demands. Scaling up a new technology is hard work, but humanity has done it before when motivated by a powerful mission — the United States building airplanes in World War II and Tesla building electric cars are good examples.
Our fusion power plants will unlock a more optimistic mindset by enabling industries and technologies like deep decarbonization that today are limited by energy constraints. This ARC in Chesterfield County will stand out as a historic location for us, for Virginia, and for humanity.
