Grid Integration: Dispatching Firm Power
The burner housings export firm, dispatchable power through direct energy conversion; L7 is the interface that makes that export legible and controllable to a grid.
Firm power from the burner
Among the two machines, the burner (Aegis / MetroVolt) is the electricity exporter. It is a D-3He tandem-mirror generator with a 26.49 T plug and 17 T throat whose 5.44% neutron fraction means most of its output leaves as charged-particle energy suitable for direct energy conversion. That gives a source that is firm (not weather-driven) and dispatchable within its ramp limits. L7 grid integration is the layer that presents this capability to a grid operator and accepts dispatch back.
Aegis serves fixed defense installations, where the priority is islanded reliability and ride-through; MetroVolt serves data centers, where the priority is steady baseload with fast response to campus load steps. The same grid-integration framework serves both, parameterized by the interconnection it faces.
What the grid needs from the plant
- Availability and forecast: how much firm power, with what confidence, over the horizon
- Dispatchability: setpoint following within certified ramp limits
- Frequency response: inertia-like and droop behavior on sub-second to second scales
- Voltage and reactive support at the interconnection
- Ride-through and islanding for defense sites
L7 answers each through the read and write planes. The plant-state API publishes availability and forecast; the dispatch command API accepts setpoints; a fast frequency-response lane handles sub-second grid services; and the twin certifies every requested behavior against the safe operating envelope before it is offered to the grid at all.
The breeder (Hyperion) is not a grid exporter in the same sense. Its products are tritium, helium-3, and 14 MeV neutron services; its L7 face is supply chain and isotope offtake, not dispatch. Keeping these roles distinct prevents the common error of promising grid electricity from a machine whose purpose is breeding and materials.
No net-electric-to-grid claim is made before hardware exists. Grid integration is today validated against the twin and simulated interconnection models; the interfaces are frozen so a burner unit can be enrolled with a real operator once built.