Startup nabs $60M for high-tech cables to help speed clean energy rollout

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.

Most of the $60 million TS Conductor just raised is aimed at opening a new, much larger factory at an as yet unnamed location in the eastern U.S. ​“This is all about ​‘how do we accelerate the pace of TS Conductor adoption?’” Huang told Canary Media this week. ​“We’re very lucky that we have these utility investors supporting TS, and making that bet on the direction of technology in the future.”

While Huang declined to say where the new factory would be or when it would open, he did say it would have roughly 10 times the 5,000-miles-per-year production capacity of its Southern California facility.

TS Conductor is backed by some big players in the transmission field. Along with lead investor Wellington Management and early-stage investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the Series B funding round included the venture arm of utility National Grid; U.S. utility holding company Edison International; a subsidiary of leading U.S. renewable energy developer NextEra Energy Resources; and Quanta Services, a major transmission project engineering and management firm.

TS Conductor isn’t the only advanced conductor manufacturer raising new capital to meet the needs of the grid. In February, CTC Global raised an undisclosed amount of money from Endeavour Capital and Greenbelt Capital Partners to expand production of its aluminum-conductor composite core (ACCC) cables. This technology, which is similar to but an older design than its TS Conductor counterpart, promises similar capacity and efficiency benefits, and has been installed by more than 250 utilities in 60 countries.