The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) now accepts applications from companies partnering with consortia of national laboratories and universities, and supports reviews of early fusion pilot-plant designs. Applications for the fiscal 2027 round close Dec. 13.
INFUSE logo. Credit: ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy
The changes follow DOE’s Nov. 2 announcement of $8.5 million in fiscal 2026 funding for 28 INFUSE projects.
The program also has an incoming director, Arturo Dominguez, and added a third lab to its management team.
INFUSE, which pays national labs and universities to work with private fusion companies, typically provides awards of $100,000 to $500,000, with larger requests considered for work of critical value to a company.
This year’s awards
This year, DOE selected 17 lab-led and 11 university-led projects, collaborating with 22 companies, for awards of $100,000 to $500,000 each over one to two years. DOE will negotiate the awards before issuing funding. The round increased from $6.1 million for 20 projects last year. In 2024, DOE awarded $4.6 million across 17 projects.
This year’s round brings INFUSE to more than 150 projects since 2019.
Ten awards went to nine first-time INFUSE companies. Project topics include high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets, reactor materials, diagnostics and work on producing and handling fusion fuel.
In a materials data project, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit energy research institute, will gather records on irradiated samples from the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), a research reactor at ORNL, into one searchable catalog. Those records are now scattered across experiment files, inventory systems and old reports.
On the supply chain side, SuperPower, which ORNL calls one of the few U.S. makers of rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) superconducting wire, will work with ORNL on the laser deposition targets, the material that lasers vaporize to coat SuperPower’s wire, so the company can scale production.
The INFUSE money goes to the partner lab or university, while company partners cover at least 20% of total project costs. For design reviews, the fiscal 2027 call strongly encourages a cost share of 50% or more.
What’s changing
ORNL’s INFUSE release introduces Arturo Dominguez as the program’s incoming director.
“Through INFUSE, companies can access capabilities that would be difficult or time-consuming to build on their own, while the public institutions gain a clearer view of the technical barriers most critical to commercialization,” Dominguez said in ORNL’s release.
Also this year, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) joins ORNL and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in running the program.
The fiscal 2027 call allows companies to partner with consortia of national laboratories and universities and adds a review topic for pilot-plant designs. The addition could give companies outside DOE’s Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program, which pays companies only as they hit agreed technical and business milestones toward a fusion pilot plant, a route to lab review of pilot-plant designs.
INFUSE and DOE’s budget
In its fiscal 2027 budget request, DOE asked for $135 million for fusion public-private partnerships, up from $100 million. DOE said it would put the increase toward the Milestone program, research at private companies’ fusion facilities and the new Fusion Bringing Regional Investments to Develop and Grow Fusion Engines (Fusion BRIDGE) program, which would fund regional consortia building test stands.
The request remains subject to congressional appropriations. The government is operating under a continuing resolution through Dec. 11.
The Dec. 13 INFUSE application deadline for fiscal 2027 falls two days after the stopgap expires.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.