Published 22nd January 2018
As we enter the fourth year of the ESRF’s Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS) project, it is clear that 2018 will mark a turning point. By the end of the year, the procurement and assembly phases will be complete, and on 10 December, the current ESRF’s last beam will fade away. That will signal the end of an era for users, but the beginning of an intense phase of dismantling and installation for the EBS project team.
Behind the scenes, the last three years have seen a lot of groundwork: the conceptual design, and the engineering and procurement of thousands of individual, state-of-the-art components that make up the new storage ring. Today, the huge deliveries of magnets, the mushrooming of buildings on-site and the first fully assembled EBS girders are all visual reminders of the progress being made. This is generating excitement and pride both for the project team and for the wider ESRF community.