EVERETT — A Chelan County hearing examiner approved a conditional use permit on Tuesday, allowing Everett-based Helion Energy to construct what could become the world’s first fusion power plant in the town of Malaga near the Columbia River.
Helion broke ground for the facility in July. The decision this week clears the way for it to build a 100,000-square-foot “fusion generation building,” a 55,000-square-foot substation and a 26,800-square-foot assembly building, according to project documents.
“This is another important step toward a future of abundant, clean, safe, affordable energy,” said David Kirtley, Helion’s co-founder and CEO, in a press release. “As a company of builders with a single-minded focus on making electricity from fusion commercially practical, we couldn’t be more excited to move into this next phase of construction for the Orion power plant.”
Some energy experts have said they don’t think that commercial fusion, which aims to harness the same nuclear reactions that fuel the sun and stars, will be available until the year 2050 or beyond. But Kirtley said the approval to build the plants puts Helion on track to provide power to Microsoft by the end of 2028.
Helion had announced back in May 2023 that it had signed an agreement with Microsoft to power some of the company’s data centers from its planned 50 megawatt power plant.
In a separate move, Helion spokeswoman Jessie Thomas said the company leased a new building in Everett in August as part of an expansion.
Thomas said the more-than-165,000-square-foot industrial building at 1215 80 St. SW in Everett will be used for manufacturing reactor components. She said the new facility is about a half mile from Helion offices and a reactor testing facility at 1415 75th St SW.
Helion employs 500 workers in Everett, Thomas said. She declined to discuss the employment plans for the new facility.
Kirtley said Helion is the first private fusion company to achieve 100 million degrees Celsius plasma temperatures in its testing models. That temperature is generally considered the required operating temperature for commercial fusion.
Helion has received around $1 billion in funding, with one of its key backers being OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
The Fusion Industry Association said there are 30 companies developing fusion power, raising a combined $9.7 billion in funding from investors.
The investments have grown fivefold since 2021, according to the Fusion Industry Association.
Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com.
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