Power converters for ITER

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is a thermonuclear fusion experiment designed to provide long deuterium– tritium burning plasma operation. After a short description of ITER objectives, the main design parameters and the construction schedule, the paper describes the electrical characteristics of the French 400 kV grid at Cadarache: the European site proposed for ITER. Moreover, the paper describes the main requirements and features of the power converters designed for the ITER coil and additional heating power supplies, characterized by a total installed power of about 1.8 GVA, modular design with basic units up to 90 MVA continuous duty, dc currents up to 68 kA, and voltages from 1 kV to 1 MV dc.