An Assessment of Multiplexed Deployment of Advanced Commercial Tokamaks

A commercial electric plant concept has been developed with multiple advanced tokamak reactors operating at a single site with shared equipment. These multiplexed reactors use superconducting magnets, operate at high beta, and have inductively driven plasma current. The attractiveness of this approach is based on cost reductions which are achieved by the sharing of some components and on availability improvements resulting from the addition of standby equipment. Parametric studies have been performed to determine both the optimal number of reactors in a plant and the optimal reactor characteristics. A plant layout has been developed which uses remote maintenance technologies for operation and maintenance such that at least part of the plant is always operational.