Investigation on power supply operation for the Helias Stellarator Fusion Reactor

Investigations on operation of the power supply for the auxiliary system of the fusion power plant were made using the SIMPLORER, EFFI and NEPLAN codes. The new approach was to use an additional 80 MW, 1.2 GJ energy storage unit with the magnetic confinement system (superconducting magnet system, multiconverter unit and STATCOM) as a SMES to reduce network loadings to 80 MW instead of 160 MW in the power plant start-up operation during plasma heating. This reduction of the active power pulsed loads reduces the risk of oscillating power frequency changes. These oscillations produce transient power flows which can danger the grid stability.