More Electricity Deals for Fusion Energy: Moving from Development to Commercialization

Last week The Fusion Report reported on the levels of investment, both private and public, that have gone into fusion so far in 2025. One point that we emphasized in that article is that as fusion moves from development to commercialization and fielding, deals to buy electricity from production fusion energy plants will begin to replace venture funding deals in importance. The primary reason for this is that utility companies signing up to buy power from fusion shows market acceptance of fusion, which in itself will inevitably lead to investors putting more money into fusion. In that sense, these deals are more important than secondary markets for uses for fusion systems such as neutron sources, isotopes, or even high-temperature superconductor (HTS) magnets. There are four deals today for electricity from fusion energy; let’s explore the details of each of these, and their importance to the companies providing the fusion machines.

Helion Energy, Microsoft, and Nucor

The grandfather of all fusion electricity deals, this deal was signed between Helion Energy and Microsoft Corporation in May 2023. The deal is for Helion to deliver electricity from Helion’s first fusion power plant in 2028. The electricity, which will most likely be from Helion’s upcoming Malaga, WA power plant (pictured below undergoing

site preparation), will be for a capacity of 50 MW of power, likely to a Microsoft data center. If Helion stays on schedule for their target of 2028 (and assuming that no one else “speeds ahead”), this will be the world’s first fusion energy power plant. While 50 MW of power is not necessarily a lot, providing it continuously is an important milestone in fusion energy commercialization.

The Helion-Microsoft deal was followed in September 2023 by a deal between Nucor and Helion to develop a 500 MWe fusion power plant to power a yet-unnamed Nucor steel manufacturing facility in the US. The purpose of this deal for NUCOR is a step forward in the decarbonization of steel manufacturing. It is notable that Helion closed a Corporate funding round in September 2023 which was nearly concurrently with the Helion-Nucor announcement, and 4 months after the Helion-Microsoft announcement. This funding round was for $35M at a $4.2B valuation; 1-2/3 higher valuation than its previous round of $500M in November 2021 at a $2.5B valuation.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Google, and ENI

While not first to the party, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has also closed two deals (both this year) to commercially provide fusion power to corporate entities; one an operator of data centers and one to a utility. The first deal, announced in June 2025, is with Google to supply 200 MW of power capacity by 2032 from its ARC fusion power plant in Virginia, likely to a Google data center also in Virginia. As a part of the deal, Google also invested additional money into CFS’s latest funding round, which closed in August 2025.

CFS’s second deal, which closed three months later in September 2025, was with Italian energy company Eni, which has facilities in Europe, Australia, the US, and Kazakhstan. The deal with Eni, in which they agreed to buy power from the 400 MW ARC fusion machine in Virginia, has an indeterminate date for first supplying the power. The total value of the CFS-ENI deal was publicly stated to be over $1B US. This move is a step in Eni’s transformation from a fossil fuel company into an energy technology company.

Fusion Energy Takes the First Steps to Becoming Commercialized

While these deals together are probably for less than 1 GWe, a tiny amount of electricity given the world’s consumption today is approaching 30,000 Terawatt-hours (TWh). Nevertheless, these deals represent real investments by some of the largest companies in the world into production fusion energy. More importantly, these deals will generate momentum for fusion energy which will not only attract more power deals; they will attract more funding for fusion as well.