The European roadmap towards fusion electricity

The European roadmap to the realization of fusion electricity breaks the quest into eight missions. For each mission, it reviews the current status of research, identifies open issues, and proposes a research and development programme. ITER is the key facility on the roadmap as it is expected to achieve most of the important milestones on the path to fusion power. The Fusion Roadmap is tightly connected to the ITER schedule and the vast majority of resources in fusion research are presently dedicated to ITER and its accompanying experiments. Parallel to the ITER exploitation in the 2030s, the construction of the demonstration power plant DEMO needs to be prepared. DEMO will for the first time supply fusion electricity to the grid and it will have a self-sufficient fuel cycle. The design, construction and operation of DEMO require full involvement of industry to ensure that, after a successful DEMO operation, industry can take responsibility for commercial fusion power. The European fusion roadmap provides a coherent path towards the fusion power plant, and it proposes in an integrated way to find solutions for all challenges that still need to be addressed. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Fusion energy using tokamaks: can development be accelerated?