MEST: A new Magnetic Energy Storage and Transfer system for improving the power handling in fusion experiments

A new magnetic energy storage scheme is studied for improving the power handling in fusion experiments: it can be applied both to tokamak or RFP experiments to supply the poloidal superconducting coils and can efficiently support the operation of the Central Solenoid (CS), without the need for resistive switching networks, thus with the advantage of energy dissipation avoidance. The basic idea, presented with reference to the CS circuit, is to provide an additional Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage coil (TC), pre-charged along with the CS one to the same current value and then to transfer step by step the energy from one to the other and vice versa during the different phases of the plasma pulse, via switched capacitor. The principle is applied to the case of a Fusion-Fission Hybrid Reactor, based on Reversed Field Pinch configuration operated exploiting the flux double swing.