Europe completes the Control Building, the operations centre of ITER

Switching on ITER, the world’s largest fusion device, will be a historic moment for science. Just a short distance away from the tokamak, a team of operators will be privileged to witness its first plasma from the screens of the Main Control Room, in the Control Building. From there, they will be able to monitor millions of parameters, thanks to the data flowing from across the site towards its servers. Based on it, the experts will manage the machine and its auxiliary plants in real time and decide on the next plasma pulses.

Fusion for Energy (F4E) and its contractor Demathieu Bard have now completed this iconic building. The French engineering firm designed and erected the facility, which has a 3,500 m² footprint. Once the structure was finished, the teams started installing services like ventilation, electricity or fire protection, whilst ITER Organization’s contractors set up all the computer hardware. In total, there are 80 cubicles containing electronic systems to process the massive volume of information.

Besides the main control room and server rooms, the Control Building has offices, a command post, a gallery for visitors and a dining room. Staff will enter it from the ITER headquarters (just outside the platform) via a footbridge. “Unlike the rest of industrial buildings, this one is made to host people during the 24 hours, so we included many provisions for accessibility and ergonomics, such as noise reduction and natural indirect light,” explains Eric Brault, F4E’s Project Manager.

“We are proud to deliver another ITER building, especially one with such symbolic value, as the future centre of operations. We designed its layout and services to offer the best work experience. We then executed it meeting the complex requirements in a challenging schedule, thanks to the good planning and collaboration with F4E, as well as ITER Organization and their suppliers,” says Sébastien Berne, Major Project Director of Demathieu Bard. The works lasted five years, with over 200,000 human-hours.

The teams gathered for a commemorative picture in the Main Control Room, holding their hard hats as the construction was formally over. The 800 m² space is equipped with 30 workstations and the first workers have started moving in. Next month, the various temporary control rooms, in charge of monitoring the plant systems under commissioning, will be relocated in the new building.

For now, it may seem quiet in the wide room. But when ITER ramps up to full operations, it will host close to 80 experts working in shifts around the clock. In front of them, a screen wall will display everything happening inside and around the most powerful fusion device – and the world will be watching.