Lagos Runs a Full Day on Fusion and Sun, With Coal Held in Reserve

LAGOS — For twenty-six consecutive hours this week the Lagos metropolitan grid drew no power from fossil plants, running on fusion baseload piped from an Aurora Fusion Works reactor and on midday solar, the regional operator confirmed. Fusion now supplies roughly 30 percent of the reconnected global grid, and days like this one hint at where the curve is heading. But engineers were careful not to oversell it. "One clear, mild day is not a system," said Adaeze Nwosu, a control-room supervisor who watched the coal units idle on standby all afternoon, ready to fire within minutes. Aurora, whose newest baseload unit came online last month, says demand on the hottest days still outruns clean supply, forcing the reserve plants back on. For the roughly nine million residents on this grid, the lesson of the twenty-six hours is double-edged: the destination is visible, and the road there is still narrow.