Zap Energy secures power supply manufacturing capabilities with acquisition of liquidated ICAR assets

The purchase of the liquidated assets of global capacitor manufacturer ICAR strengthens Zap’s engineering platform for advanced power supplies, a vital component in its repetitively-pulsed fusion energy technologies.

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zap Energy announced today that it has acquired a substantial package of liquidated assets from ICAR, formerly a leading global manufacturer of capacitors and power supply equipment. The move is the first phase in building out Zap’s manufacturing capability in proprietary repetitive pulsed-power technologies and establishes a foundation for near-term development of a key system component.

“This lays the cornerstone in establishing plant-ready, repetitive pulsed-power,” said Benj Conway, Zap’s CEO and President. “Our future plant technology requires the development of specialized capacitors to power fusion – the ICAR acquisition gives us a several-year head start.”

A bank of capacitors is a key pillar of Zap Energy’s fusion technology. Capacitors store electrical energy that can be rapidly discharged into Zap’s devices, delivering extremely high current that creates fusion conditions in a plasma configuration known as a Z pinch. Zap is designing and building a repetitively pulsed system that delivers bursts of power from such capacitor banks multiple times per second.

“We now have both the equipment and the engineering talent to develop and build capacitors uniquely suited to the demands of our advanced repetitive pulsed-power systems,” said Matthew Thompson, Zap’s Vice President of Systems Engineering.

The equipment acquired by Zap from Italy-based ICAR represents the majority of the company’s global manufacturing line. During over 70 years in business, ICAR was a leading manufacturer in the development and production of high-performance capacitors. Among many applications, ICAR notably supplied capacitors to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility for fusion experiments that achieved ignition last year. The company dissolved in 2021.

About Zap Energy

Zap Energy is building a low-cost, compact and scalable fusion energy platform that confines and compresses plasma without the need for expensive and complex magnetic coils. Zap’s sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch technology provides compelling fusion economics and requires orders of magnitude less capital than conventional approaches. Zap Energy has over one hundred team members in two facilities near Seattle and is backed by leading financial and strategic investors. Visit Zap online at zapenergy.com.