Star power in Tennessee: Type One Energy is building the world’s first commercial fusion power plant
A Knoxville-based startup co-founded by former Oak Ridge scientist is moving fusion energy from the laboratory to the grid at Bull Run Energy Complex.
Type One Energy is designing what would be the world’s first commercial fusion power plant, and they’re building it in Clinton at the Bull Run Energy Complex.
It’s hard to overstate the significance. The Bull Run site is the same land that once burned coal to power the region. Soon, it could be a national – even international– epicenter for fusion technology, which is anticipated to be the “Holy Grail” of clean energy sources.
How did Type One Energy get started?
Just seven years ago, the co-founders, all fusion scientists, Dr. John Canik, Dr. David Anderson, and Dr. Chris Hegna, met at a University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) conference and began talking about the window for commercialization that existed for a fusion technology called the “stellarator.”
The three started Type One Energy in 2019, began raising money in 2023, and now employ just under 200 people in Knoxville, rapidly pacing toward their Infinity One stellerator prototype.
“We’re really, really ready to make this a commercial technology,” Canik said. “We’re taking the proven science and doing the challenging, but doable, engineering it takes to fully scale.”
What is a stellarator, and why does it matter?
Fusion is the process that powers the sun: two light atomic nuclei collide and fuse, releasing big amounts of energy. Unlike nuclear fission, which is splitting the atom, fusion produces no long-lived radioactive waste and relies on fuel that is both “abundant and cheap.”
The challenge has always been confinement. Scientists have long been trying to figure out how to contain a plasma hot enough to sustain fusion.
The stellarator model uses a complex magnetic field to confine plasma without requiring a continuous electrical current. Plus, the stellarator’s magnetic configuration allows it to operate in a steady state, so it doesn’t need to be regularly shut down and restarted.
Prototype first, power plant second
Type One Energy’s commercialization roadmap has two phases, both happening at the Bull Run site.
The first is Infinity One — a sub-scale stellarator prototype designed to verify specific engineering elements of the full plant design. It is not intended to produce electricity.
According to Canik, Infinity One should be operational by 2030. Then, it will serve as an operator training facility for the workforce that will eventually run the full-scale plant.
The second phase is Infinity Two — this one is the actual power-producing system.
“Infinity Two will be our first full fusion power plant,” Canik said, sharing that targeted operation is planned for the mid-2030s, though final agreements and construction decisions remain subject to approval from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) board, regulatory review, and other approvals.
The project’s ecosystem partnership stretches back to a tri-party memorandum of understanding signed in 2023 among Type One Energy, TVA, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
That partnership deepened significantly in September 2025, when TVA issued a formal Letter of Intent (LOI) to Type One Energy to deploy Infinity Two at the Bull Run site.
Then, in January 2026, Type One Energy, TVA, and the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation (TDEC) submitted the state’s first-ever commercial fusion licensing application.
“The historical impact of what we’re doing at Bull Run is hard to overstate,” Canik said. “This will be the first fusion energy power plant, and the fact that it will be deployed on a former fossil site, turning it into this Bull Run Energy Complex — I think that will be really phenomenal.”
The growing economic impact
Type One Energy has projected the creation of more than 300 high-paying jobs in East Tennessee over the next five years, and predicts a capital investment of $223.5 million.
Type One was the first company to receive capital from the state’s Nuclear Energy Fund, receiving a $4.5 million grant. Since then, many other companies have received commitments from the fund.
Canik sees a lot of opportunity on the horizon for Type One Energy.
“Fusion will literally change the world by providing clean, abundant energy, essentially for the foreseeable future of humanity,” Canik said.
Read more about Type One Energy.
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