Importance of electron cyclotron wave energy transport in ITER

The importance of electron cyclotron (EC) wave emission to the local electron power balance is analysed for various ITER operation regimes and, for comparison, for typical working conditions of FIRE, IGNITOR and the reactor-grade ITER concept as considered during the Engineering Design Phase (ITER-EDA). To cover the non-local effects in EC wave emission as well, the CYTRAN routine along with the ASTRA transport code is used. As a result, EC wave emission is shown to be a significant contributor to core electron cooling if the core electron temperature is about 35 keV or higher, as expected for ITER and tokamak reactor steady-state operation; in fact, it becomes the dominant core electron cooling mechanism at temperatures exceeding 40 keV, as such affecting the core plasma power balance in an important way.