To help the energy transition happen faster, the high-voltage power lines crisscrossing the U.S. will need a high-tech upgrade. Recent federal and state regulations are calling on utilities to deploy a new generation of cables to get that done — and the companies making the necessary tech are gearing up to meet an expected increase in demand.
On Wednesday, TS Conductor raised $60 million to finance a significant expansion of its U.S. manufacturing capacity for its advanced conductors. Made of aluminum surrounding a carbon composite core, these cables are lighter, stronger, and capable of carrying more electricity than the aluminum-and-steel cables that are used across most of the grid.
Those advantages more than make up for TS Conductor’s higher price per meter compared with that of industry-standard cables, according to its CEO, Jason Huang. In fact, their use can lead to an overall reduction in the total cost of building new transmission corridors, he said.
Most of those expenses are tied up in building the massive towers that hold power cables aloft, not in the cables themselves, Huang noted. Lighter and more-efficient advanced conductors require fewer and less robustly built towers to carry the same or a greater amount of electricity as traditional towers and cables.
Advanced conductors are also particularly well suited to “reconductoring” projects — replacing old cables on existing transmission towers. The tech can double to triple the transmission capacity of those existing corridors, providing utilities and regulators with an alternative to securing rights-of-way and building new towers across hundreds of miles of land. Building transmission from scratch can take up to or more than a decade from conception to completion, and is often stymied by permitting and legal challenges.
Since its inaugural U.S. deployment with Montana-Dakota Utilities Co, in 2021, TS Conductor has been working with the federally owned power company Tennessee Valley Authority, Arizona utility Arizona Public Service, and other U.S. utilities, Huang said. It has also largely maxed out its production capacity at the Southern California factory it opened in 2023.