Thea Energy Wins $20M ARPA-E SCALEUP Award to Expand HTS Magnet Manufacturing

Thea Energy announced on July 27, 2026 that the U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E selected it for a $20 million award under the SCALEUP (Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential) program. The funding will establish Thea's inaugural domestic manufacturing lines for modular high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets, supporting the roughly 300 planar shaping coils required by its 'Eos' stellarator demonstration device. Thea, a Princeton University and PPPL spinout commercializing the planar-coil stellarator, says modular factory-built magnet components will let the fusion industry scale power production faster than custom-built alternatives. The award follows Thea's $100M Series B (May 27, 2026) and adds to a growing list of ARPA-E fusion supply-chain investments in 2026.