Despite the setup being valid and the reactor being in charge mode, nothing happens when power is supplied to it via creative energy cells, even without the flux gate. In the screenshots below, I placed wool to show spacing, and you can see the creative energy cells I used to bypass the flux gate on the energy injector.

I'm using CoFHCore 3.1.3-327, Thermal Foundation 1.2.5-115, Thermal Expansion, 4.1.4-247, and Thermal Dynamics 1.2.0-171.

Ah, never mind. The core was too close to the injector by 1 block.