Google announced that it has signed the largest-ever direct corporate offtake agreement for fusion energy with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), as well as an investment in CFS, aimed at supporting the CFS’ efforts to bring fusion power to the grid at scale, and the development of its first commercial plant.

Fusion, the process of combining two atoms to form a single atom to release energy, has been long referred to as the “Holy Grail” of clean and abundant energy production, given its potential to produce power from hydrogen – the most common element in the universe – without producing carbon emissions associated with fossil-fuel based power, and without the highly radioactive output of nuclear fission processes. Large scale fusion energy generation has been elusive, however, given the need to create extremely high temperatures and pressure.

Spun out of MIT in 2018, Massachusetts-based CFS is working to develop the world’s first net-energy positive – i.e., producing more energy than it consumes – fusion device, to prove and scale the production of fusion energy. The company is currently collaborating with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center to build SPARC, a demonstration machine using a “tokamak” design, which arranges  high-temperature superconductor magnets in a donut shape to confine and control plasma, in order to create the conditions necessary for fusion.

SPARC is anticipated to be the precursor to CFS’s first commercial plant, ARC to be developed in Chesterfield, Virginia, which the company expects to be the first grid-scale fusion power plant in the world.

Under the new power purchase agreement (PPA), Google will offtake energy from the planned ARC plant, which CFS expects will put power on the grid in the early 2030s.

Bob Mumgaard, CEO and Co-founder of CFS, said:

“Our strategic deal with Google is the first of many as we move to demonstrate fusion energy from SPARC and then bring our first power plant online. We aim to demonstrate fusion’s ability to provide reliable, abundant, clean energy at the scale needed to unlock economic growth and improve modern living – and enable what will be the largest market transition in history.”

Google’s investment in CFS is expected to support CFS’ efforts to build ARC, and follows on a prior investment as part of a $1.8 billion capital raise in 2021 to support the development of SPARC. Terms of the new investment were not disclosed.

Michael Terrell, Head of Advanced Energy at Google, said:

“By entering into this agreement with CFS, we hope to help prove out and scale a promising pathway toward commercial fusion power. We’re excited to make this longer-term bet on a technology with transformative potential to meet the world’s future energy demand, and support CFS in their efforts to reach the scientific and engineering milestones needed to get there.”