ITER - Performance

Programme in a nutshell

Concrete examples of achievements (*)

^{(*) Key achievements in the table state which period they relate to. Many come from the implementation of the predecessor programmes under the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework. This is expected and is due to the multiannual life cycle of EU programmes and the projects they finance, where results often follow only after completion of the programmes.}

Budget for 2021-2027

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Rationale and design of the programme

The ITER-related EU action supports the construction and future operation of ITER, which will be the first experimental device to test the feasibility of fusion as a future source of energy.

Budget

Budget programming (million EUR):

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Financial programming:
- EUR 1 058.1 million (- 19%)
compared to the legal basis*

^{* Top-ups pursuant to Article 5 of the multiannual financial framework regulation are excluded from financial programming in this comparison.}

• The commitment profile over the 2021–2027 period, which amounted to EUR 5.179 million up to last year, has been significantly revised in 2023 to be aligned on a more actual assessment of the project needs known at this date. The original commitments for the period were based on too optimistic project progress planning defined in the 2016 baseline estimates. As ITER is an industrial research project under construction, the budgetary needs have not been linear.  
• After years of steady progress, challenges have contributed to slow-down the implementation of the project like Covid-19 pandemic, quality issues of some key components delivered by non EU-Members and difficulties to comply with the regulatory environment. The ITER Council asked the ITER Organisation to redefine a New Baseline. The revised baseline is expected end of 2024. 
• In 2023, additional uncertainties in the project schedule and technical difficulties further reduced the ability of Fusion for Energy to place contracts as expected and this explains the reduced budget request compared to the legal basis. 
•  The objective of the Governing Board of F4E was to bring F4E’s annual budgets closer to the expected execution levels at the end of each budgetary year and to limit the level of unused appropriations at the end of the current MFF, while preserving the financing capacity of F4E on the long-term. 
• Euratom has decided to return to the European budget additional EUR 400 million in 2023 and transfer to other budget lines EUR 16.9 million. This decision reduced the available budget of F4E for year 2023 to 2027 (EUR 290 million for 2023, EUR 120 million for 2024 and EUR 2.3 million for the 3 following years). This completes adjustments of EUR 435 million made previously. Additional budget decrease could be decided for the remaining years of this MFF  

Budget performance – implementation

Multiannual cumulative implementation rate at the end of 2022 (million EUR):

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Voted budget implementation (million EUR)⁽¹⁾:

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Contribution to horizontal priorities

Green budgeting

Contribution to green budgeting priorities (million EUR):

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• The Commission considers that 100% of the ITER-related expenditure for the 2021-2027 period contributes to the climate effort of the EU budget. The project does not, however, contribute to the biodiversity mainstreaming or the clean air budgeting priorities.

Gender

Contribution to gender equality (million EUR) (*):

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Digital

Contribution to the digital transition (million EUR):

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Budget performance – outcomes

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• In 2023, the ITER project reported some noticeable progress. As a major achievement of the year, F4E delivered to ITER all the magnets that Europe had committed to deliver. These powerful magnets, which will confine the super-hot plasma (150 million °C), are the most complex magnets to date. This achievement results from 15 years of work and required the coordination of at least 40 companies by F4E. This programme is now in its closing phase. 
• F4E also succeeded in completing the construction of the main building works in 2023. 
• As at the end of December 2023, 24% of all ITER plants had been installed. The manufacturing of the main components progressed, but further delays have been reported in the manufacturing and pre-assembly of vacuum vessel sectors and the design and procurement of electron cyclotron heating components. Solutions have been elaborated to speed up the delivery of these components and limit their cost overruns. In particular, Euratom has actively promoted a better integration of the ITER Organization and F4E activities to develop synergies and common working methods as far as the design of the main comments and timelines are concerned. 
• Work towards achieving first plasma continues to advance, but it has become clear that the milestone of reaching it by 2025 can no longer be achieved. Both the completion of ITER’s construction and Euratom’s in-kind contribution were below their 2023 targets. Various steps of the project have been rescheduled to establish a more realistic planning. The baseline revision exercise has been accordingly started by the ITER Organization, which is expected to present an initial revised baseline in June 2024. The new baseline will have to be approved by the ITER Council and will serve as a basis for the Commission to establish the programme budgetary needs for the next multiannual financial framework. 
• Due to its international nature, whereby Russia is one of the project partners, the ITER project is also impacted by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. In particular, some parts and tools that were destined to Russia for manufacturing the components have had difficulties in entering Russia, due to the sanctions imposed by the EU (while civil nuclear equipment is exempt from the sanctions, it takes time to obtain clearance from national authorities) and due to the unwillingness and refusal of the Member States to trade with Russia. However, many key components were already delivered to the project site or are in Europe, and the missing components are not on the project critical path.  
• ITER is an international organisation and the ITER International Agreement does not foresee the possibility of excluding or suspending the participation of any member. Nevertheless, the EU continued to chair the ITER Council as of 1 January 2024, even if it was Russia’s turn. 
• In December 2023, the JT-60SA reactor was inaugurated. It was built and will be operated jointly by the EU and Japan under the Broader Approach Agreement, and is the biggest and most advanced tokamak fusion reactor in the world. It has been active since December 2023 and its exploitation will be instrumental for ITER. 
• Fusion can be a clean and virtually limitless energy source. Nowadays, the general potential of fusion is more widely recognised thanks to the strong advance of fusion science in recent years. ITER will be the world’s biggest and most intensive fusion research project when it is constructed. There are more than a dozen additional fusion research initiatives underway (e.g. a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Commonwealth Fusion Systems start-up, and other initiatives in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States). The fusion foresight study carried out by DG Energy (4) mapped all the initiatives and drew scenarios for future fusion development. In all scenarios the ITER experiment is central for further fusion research and initiatives. 
• The EU’s funding of ITER is an investment in a more sustainable, climate-friendly society. The preamble of the ITER agreement emphasises the long-term potential of fusion energy as a virtually limitless, environmentally acceptable and economically competitive source of energy. The European Commission considers ITER expenditure as 100% relevant to the achievement of the 30% climate spending target of the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework. The climate contribution from the 2023 commitments was EUR 543.0 million. 
• F4E is also acting as an innovation facilitator to support the industry, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises. Success stories of companies that have increased their competitiveness thanks to the commercial use of F4E’s technology package are published on its marketplace of technologies (5). To achieve new success stories each year, F4E is actively doing the following.  
  • Promoting a portfolio of technologies. A total of 33 technology packages are currently being offered (6) for use in non-fusion markets. F4E’s network of brokers is supporting its industrial partners, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, to present business-oriented sales pitches of the technologies at events organised or attended by F4E (the F4E Technology Transfer Day, the Big Science Business Forum, a series of brokerage webinars, Hannover Messe, Automatica).  
  • Funding projects to bring the technologies to the market. In 2023, F4E launched the third edition of the Technology Transfer Award and the second edition of the ‘Demonstrator’ project. F4E is rewarding the commercial use of technologies and is funding the gap between the technology readiness level in the ITER project and the readiness level of the technology needed for its use in the market.  
  • Promoting a marketplace of technologies. This is an opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises to showcase the new skills they have acquired thanks to their participation in the ITER project. 

Contribution to the sustainable development goals