Gerdau Cosigua has contracted Russula for an electrical and controls upgrade of its rolling mill #2, which will take place in two phases.

A press release said that the scope of the first phase is from the reheat furnace to the laying head. Obsolete drive and control equipment will be upgraded with new drives, PLCs for optimal mill control and an HMI supplied by Russula along with new remote IOs.

Based in A Coruña, Spain, Russula provides electrical and automation solutions for bar, rod and section mills and reheating furnaces, steel making and strip processing lines. The project will use Russula’s artificial vision cameras that optimize shear cutting in the wire rod mill. The AV system measures the shear cuts automatically and adjusts the cut length to minimize metallic losses thus improving mill efficiency.

In June 2024, the kickoff meeting for phase 1 took place on site at the Gerdau Cosigua plant in Santa Cruz, Brazil. The second phase covers the furnace combustion and all the equipment in the coil cooling and handling area is scheduled for 2025.

South Korea’s LS Cable & System reported that one of its subsidiaries has received an order for extra-high voltage cable from Vietnam Electricity (EVN), the Southeast Asian country’s state-owned electricity utility.

A press release said that the cables will be installed in infrastructure projects for Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport and an industrial complex in the northeastern part of the country. LS Eco Energy produces extra-high voltage cables in its Vietnam plant and accounts for 80% of the local cable market. It also exports Vietnamese-made cables to Europe and North America.

LS Cable owns a 67% stake in LS Eco Energy.

EVN notes that the need for power is acute in Vietnam. It reported that increasing national power consumption is straining the resources that must be able to handle intense hot and muggy weather. The National Load Dispatch Center said that on May 28, national power consumption in a single day surpassed 1 billion kWh, and on June 14 its usage set a record peak of 1.02 billion kWh.

Prysmian has received a Letter of Award for an energy transmission project that calls for it to supply the cable to connect the island Mallorca with the Spanish mainland, a project valued at more than €500 million.

A press release said that Prysmian and Red Eléctrica, the transmission system operator of the Spanish electricity system, will hold an exclusive negotiation of the contract, with the signing expected by the end of 2024. Prysmian will be responsible for the design, installation, testing and commissioning of two HVDC 250 kV MI single-core cables, as well as fiber optic cable for telecom and monitoring purposes that will connect the island of Mallorca with the Spanish mainland power grid, covering both the submarine and land section. The project will reinforce the quality and security of the Balearic Islands’ electricity supply.

“Prysmian has strengthened its leading role in development interconnections thanks to the second Baleares Peninsula project, as we continue to enable increasingly efficient and sustainable power transmission grids in the Mediterranean area,” said Hakan Ozmen, EVP Transmission at Prysmian. The project will use the same consolidated MI cable technology previously deployed in the Peninsula Baleares 1 installation, he said.

In recent years, Prysmian’s long relationship with Red Electrica has seen the company being awarded projects such as the Ibiza-Formentera, Lanzarote-Fuerteventura, Tenerife –La Gomera and Ceuta-Peninsula connections.

TS Conductor has raised $60 million to finance a significant expansion of its U.S. manufacturing capacity for its advanced conductors.

A press release said that most of the funds will go to opening a new, much larger factory at an unnamed location in the Eastern U.S. The new factory will have about 10 times the annual capacity of its Southern California facility, which can produce 5,000 miles of conductors.

TS Conductor notes that it has support from very credible companies in the transmission field. Along with lead investor Wellington Management and early-stage investor Breakthrough Energy Ventures, investors in the recent 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; Energy & Environment Investment, Inc.; and Quanta Services, a major transmission project engineering and management firm.

The release said that TS Conductor’s advanced conductors, made of aluminum surrounding a carbon composite core, are lighter, stronger and capable of carrying more electricity than the aluminum and steel cables that are used across most of the grid. They can serve an important role in improving the U.S. power grid.

Since its inaugural U.S. deployment with Montana-Dakota Utilities, 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. The company largely maxed out its production capacity of its Southern California factory that it opened in 2023.

Yangtze expands Poland plant, starts optical fiber cable production in Mexico

China’s Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC) reports that it has expanded production at its Poland plant and started production at its expanded plant in Mexico.

A press release said that on July 12, the company’s expansion project was successfully completed, marked by the first reel of indoor cable rolling off the production line in the new workshop. Construction of the plant began in 2021 with the first reel of qualified outdoor cable produced in February 2022. Full capacity was reached in October 2022 and the subsidiary’s growth to a project to expand the plant’s indoor cable production in 2023. That project is wrapped up, and the plant’s current product mix is now more diversified and better able to cater to the European market’s demand.

YOFC also announced that operations commenced Aug. 8 at Yangtze Optics Mexico Cable S.A. de C.V. in Mexico’s Jalisco State, marking its first production facility in the nation. It said that this development represents a significant phase in YOFC’s international strategy and positions the company to capitalize on the growing demand for telecom infrastructure in Mexico for which it will supply fiber optic cables and solutions.

“We look forward to Yangtze Optics Mexico providing customers with the best solutions through its strong professional technology and high-quality product services, becoming the most trusted fiber optic cable supplier in the area,” said YOFC President and Executive Director Zhuang Dan.

YOFC notes that since 2014, it has embraced the national Belt and Road Initiative and embarked on “a relentless journey of internationalization.” Its products are now sold to more than 100 countries and regions