STEP Fusion Names Manufacturing Partners for UK Prototype Power Plant
A Derby manufacturing site and a breeding blanket experiment move the West Burton plant forward
The UK's programme to build a prototype fusion power plant at West Burton in Nottinghamshire has announced new partnerships to build the manufacturing capability it will need. On 17 September 2026, UK Fusion Energy (UKFE), the subsidiary of the UK Atomic Energy Authority that is delivering STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production), named Infinity Technology Group as a manufacturing partner and committed up to £3 million to a breeding blanket experiment with Kyoto Fusioneering.
What STEP is aiming to do
STEP is a prototype spherical tokamak, a machine that uses powerful magnetic fields to hold a plasma many times hotter than the core of the Sun so that hydrogen isotopes can fuse and release energy. The goal is to show that fusion can deliver net energy to the grid.
The plant will be built at West Burton, the site of a former coal-fired power station. Construction is expected to start in the 2030s, with operations targeted for 2040.
A new advanced manufacturing site in Derby
Under the new partnership, Infinity Technology Group will develop an advanced manufacturing site in Derby to support STEP. It will cover prototyping, digital engineering and component manufacture using processes such as hot isostatic pressing (which uses heat and high gas pressure to produce dense, high-integrity metal parts), power beam welding and additive manufacturing.
“Delivering STEP Fusion will depend on manufacturing capabilities that do not yet exist at the scale we need,” said Dan Bishop, UKFE’s chief commercial officer. UKFE has also become a Tier 1 member of the Manufacturing Technology Centre.
Testing how to breed tritium
Future fusion power plants will run on deuterium and tritium. Tritium is very scarce in nature, so plants will need to make their own using a breeding blanket: lithium-containing material around the plasma that produces tritium when struck by neutrons from the fusion reaction.
UKFE is investing up to £3 million with Kyoto Fusioneering to design and manufacture a lithium oxide solid breeder blanket experiment, including irradiation testing and online tritium measurement. The work is linked to the UNITY-3 test facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US.
Fusion careers in the Midlands
STEP will need engineers across a huge range of disciplines, from materials, welding and mechanical engineering to power systems, controls, remote handling and chemical and process engineering for the fuel cycle. With West Burton in Nottinghamshire and new capability in Derby, the East Midlands is set to become a centre for fusion skills.
Want to be part of it, or need to recruit for a fusion or nuclear programme? Get in touch with Bernoullis.
Sources: ANS Nuclear Newswire · STEP Fusion
Images are illustrative. Credits: EUROfusion, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons; Isaac Bee, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons; Des Blenkinsopp , CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
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