On January 16, 2016, Dr. Luo Delong, Executive Deputy Director of the Chinese Domestic Agency of ITER(CNDA), accompanied EU delegation of the ITER Council to the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP). The delegation was led by Mr. Gerassimos Thomas, Head of Delegation (HoD) and Mr. Glenn Counsell, Deputy Head of ITER Department, Fusion for Energy.

Dr. Wan Baonian, Director of the ASIPP, gave a full account of the institute’s achievements in fusion research, research plans over the last two years as well as bilateral and multilateral cooperation with European counterparts for joint research into magnetic confinement fusion. Mr. Thomas followed closely the progress the institute has made for ITER, and heard a briefing about coil procurement packages. He spoke highly of the pragmatic and productive cooperation between the institute and the European Fusion Laboratory. The delegation also visited the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, ITER power source testing room, low-temperature testing room, superconductor production room as well as the ITER production workshop of correction coils, and traveled to the bonded zone to visit a procurement package manufacturing facility jointly built by China and EU for producing poloidal magnetic coils.

Thanks to the visit, the European officials deepened their understanding of the institute’s research in magnetic confinement fusion and the manufacturing process of coil procurement packages, and were very pleased to see China’s steady progress in manufacturing the coil procurement packages for the European partner. In addition, the delegation held in-depth discussions with Prof. Li Jiangang, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and panelist of the IC’s independent evaluation team, about core issues regarding schedule, cost and management.