FAQs

ITER is under construction now in Saint Paul-lez-Durance, southern France. The buildings of the ITER scientific installation are mostly complete, and machine and plant assembly is underway. 

Under the previous Director-General, Bernard Bigot, the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies conducted an eight-month, project-wide internal assessment in 2015 that scrutinized every detail of the ITER components and systems (from design, through manufacturing, delivery and assembly). The result—the best technically achievable project schedule and associated resource estimates—was presented to the ITER Council in November 2015 and subsequently reviewed by an independent group of Council-appointed experts.

In June 2016, the ITER Council endorsed the updated Resource-Loaded Integrated Schedule, through First Plasma; at its next meeting, in November 2016, it adopted the updated schedule through the start of Deuterium-Tritium Operation in 2035.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a real effect on ITER manufacturing (factory closures, personnel absences) and the transport of major components (international backlog), causing some delay against the Baseline 2016 schedule. Additionally, in November 2022, the ITER Organization reported that it had discovered some technical defects in two critical tokamak components—the thermal shield, and the vacuum vessel sectors; since, extensive repairs have been undertaken. (See further detail here and here.) An updated ITER Project Baseline (scope, schedule and cost) was examined by the ITER Council in 2024 that takes into account recovery from Covid-induced delays, the repair of key components, the ITER licensing process, and an optimized plan for assembly and operation. (See this related article.)

Whereas the 2016 plan made a low-energy, low-current first plasma the first major milestone—to be immediately followed by a multiyear assembly period to install major in-vessel components—the delay offered the project a new way forward: starting operations with a more complete machine.

The new baseline has been designed to prioritize a robust start to scientific exploitation. With a divertor, blanket shield blocks and other key components and systems in place, ITER's first operational phase, Start of Research Operation, will feature hydrogen and deuterium-deuterium plasmas that culminate in the operation of the machine in long pulses at full magnetic energy and plasma current. 

The new baseline also includes more time for integrated commissioning, the testing of some magnet coils at 4 K (minus 269 ° C), additional heating, and the availability of disruption mitigation. The material for the plasma-facing blanket first wall is also changing from beryllium to tungsten. In the new plan, the achievement of full magnetic energy in 2036 represents a delay of three years relative to the 2016 reference, while the start of the deuterium-tritium operation phase in 2039 represents a delay of four years. This approach has been approved by the ITER Council and the project is moving forward on this basis.

The roads, bridges and roundabouts of the road Itinerary that leads to the ITER site from the Mediterranean were modified by France to meet the needs of the exceptional convoys that will transport ITER components arriving by sea.

The first Highly Exceptional Load (or HEL) travelled along the ITER Itinerary in January 2015; since then, approximately 150 HEL loads have been brought along the Itinerary to ITER.

It is expected that, in total, that 250 exceptional convoys will have travelled along the Itinerary with their extra-large cargo by night, at reduced speeds, to deliver the components the project needs to complete machine assembly. The largest components transported to date are the 440-tonne vacuum vessel sectors, the 330-tonne toroidal field coils, the lowest poloidal field coil (PF6, nearly 400 tonnes), and some of the magnet feeders.