An important step forward for the development of the 24MW electron cyclotron was achieved this past Thursday. During the 13th Management Advisory Committee meeting this week, the ITER Organization concluded its 75th Procurement Arrangement for the Electron Cyclotron High Voltage Power Supplies with the European Domestic Agency.

The high voltage power supply forms the backbone of the electron cyclotron plant, providing up to 90 kV and 50A to each of the twenty-four 1MW microwave sources. The power supplies provide a high regulation of the applied voltages to actively control delivered power to the plasma based on the plasma requirements. The high regulation is based on the Pulse Step Modulation technique, which essentially stacks several smaller power supplies (or modules) in series. A rapid controller turns each module on and off to provide an accuracy of ±1 percent and modulation frequencies of up to 5kHz.

The European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy will provide 8 of the 13 power supplies to be delivered to ITER; the remaining 5 power supplies will be procured by the Indian Domestic Agency. If all goes well, the Procurement Arrangement with India will be signed this summer. The first high voltage power supply is scheduled to arrive at the ITER site in late 2015.

The ITER Organization has signed a total of 10 Procurement Arrangements in 2012: eight full Procurement Arrangements and two amendments.