PR: Zap Energy attracts $130M in fresh capital as demo power plant system begins operations and aims for first milestone

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https://www.zapenergy.com/news/zap-attracts-130m-as-demo-system-begins-operations

Press release / October 9, 2024

Zap Energy attracts $130M in fresh capital as demo power plant system begins operations and aims for first milestone
Century, a test platform for liquid metals and other key fusion energy technologies, and total funding that now surpasses $330M advance Zap’s compact fusion systems.


Century is Zap Energy's first fully-integrated demonstration of three major plant-relevant technologies operating at up to 100 kilowatts of input power.

Zap Energy has begun operations of Century, its new high-rep-rate, liquid-metal-cooled fusion test platform, and closed $130 million of fresh capital, marking significant steps toward a commercial fusion power plant.

Century is the first fully-integrated demonstration of several fusion power plant-relevant technologies, including one of the largest tests of a plasma-facing liquid metal blanket to date. Century has already demonstrated a test run of more than 1,000 consecutive plasmas in less than three hours into a chamber lined with flowing liquid metal.

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Z-pinch fusion from lab to grid
Zap Energy’s fusion approach, known as a sheared-flow-stabilized Z pinch, avoids large superconducting magnets and powerful lasers, and is far smaller than conventional systems.

To generate net energy from fusion, regardless of the type of device, the plasmas inside must satisfy fusion’s triple product: they must be hot enough, and dense enough, for long enough. With a track record of rapid progress in plasma physics using two workhorse fusion devices, and recent results reinforcing the viability of the path ahead, Zap has begun work engineering new devices to face greater extremes and harness fusion’s energy output.

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