The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and Office of Science–Fusion Energy Sciences (SC-FES) are overseeing a joint program, Galvanizing Advances in Market-aligned fusion for an Overabundance of Watts (GAMOW). ARPA-E will contribute up to $15 million in funding over a three-year program period, and FES will contribute up to $5 million per year for three years for qualifying technologies. GAMOW will prioritize R&D in (1) technologies and subsystems between the fusion plasma and balance of plant, (2) cost-effective, high-efficiency, high-duty-cycle driver technologies, and (3) cross-cutting areas such as novel fusion materials and advanced and additive manufacturing for fusion-relevant materials and components. Applicants should leverage and build on foundational SC-FES research programs in fusion materials, fusion nuclear science, plasma-materials interactions, and other enabling technologies, while ensuring that market-aware techno-economic analyses inform project goals.

Awardees must work toward one or more of the following high-level program objectives:

Demonstrate substantial progress toward technical feasibility and/or increases in performance compared to the current state of the art in the priority R&D areas.

Enable significant device simplification or elimination of entire subsystems of commercially motivated fusion energy systems.

Reduce fusion energy system costs, including those of critical materials and component testing.

Improve the reliability, safety, and/or environmental attractiveness of fusion energy systems.

For more than 60 years, fusion research and development has focused on attaining the required fuel density, temperature, and energy confinement time required for a viable fusion energy system. To date, relatively modest investments have been made in the enabling technologies and advanced materials needed to sustain a commercially attractive fusion energy system. However, further innovations and advances are required to establish fusion energy’s technical and commercial viability. The GAMOW program supports projects pursuing innovative R&D in fusion-energy subsystems and cross-cutting areas to enable commercially attractive fusion energy within the next several decades.

Successful development of fusion energy science and technology could lead to a safe, carbon-free, abundant energy source for developed and emerging economies.