Korean Offshore Wind Cable Maker Starts $700M Virginia Plant, Eyes Long Term

Defying the turbulence surrounding the U.S. wind vitality market, escalated by latest actions of the Trump administration to discourage sector building, LS Greeenlink is urgent forward to construct what would be the nation’s largest facility for manufacturing subsea high-voltage direct-current cables used to hyperlink offshore wind farms with onshore grids.

The U.S. subsidiary of South Korea’s LS Cable & System formally broke floor on April 28 for the almost $700-million, 753,473-sq-ft facility, to be positioned on an almost 100-acre riverfront web site in Chesapeake, Va. The corporate, which has not disclosed a contractor for the venture, says building is scheduled to complete within the third quarter of 2027, with mass manufacturing starting early the next 12 months. 

Plans name for LS GreenLink to initially develop about half of the location, together with a 659-ft tall Vertical Steady Vulcanization (VCV) tower that, when full, will likely be Virginia’s tallest construction. 

A brand new pier within the Elizabeth River will permit completed cables to be loaded straight onto vessels for cargo to venture websites worldwide. The corporate says the rest of the location will likely be developed as demand and manufacturing capabilities evolve.

The venture has certified for as much as $147 million in assist from state and federal improvement applications, together with a $99-million funding tax credit score accepted in the course of the Biden administration underneath the Inflation Discount Act. LS GreenLink says it has already lined up European grid operator Tennet as the power’s first buyer.

LS GreenLink’s Virginia initiative is a uncommon shiny spot for the U.S. wind vitality sector this 12 months, having been buffeted by dangerous information because the second Trump administration started with an Inauguration Day executive order halting all new federal leases and venture permits. Whereas the order didn’t initially have an effect on these initiatives already permitted or underway, it licensed federal officers to “evaluate the ecological, financial, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any current wind vitality leases.”

That was Inside Secretary Doug Burgum’s justification for halting construction of Equinor’s $5-billion Empire wind vitality venture off the New York coast, a venture accepted throughout Trump’s first time period. Different efforts at the moment underway have to date been allowed to proceed, the most important of which is Dominion Energy’s $10.7 billion, 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind venture. 

Much less sure are initiatives at the moment within the pipeline, notably following the president’s unhinged feedback about wind generators at a latest rally in Michigan. 

These tendencies lately led analysis guide BloombergNEF to chop its 2035 forecast for offshore wind installations by greater than half, with new cumulative capability over the following decade now anticipated to achieve solely 17GW.

Nonetheless, offshore wind proponents insist that new installations provide one of the best method to assembly the nation’s rising demand for vitality, notably given persevering with proliferation of information facilities supporting synthetic intelligence features.

A separate BloombergNEF evaluation initiatives that present electrical energy demand from these services will rise sooner than another load class over the following decade, greater than doubling its proportion of 2024’s demand–from 3.5% to eight.6%, a sooner rise than another main load class the report says.

“We want each electron we will get,” Dominion’s senior vp of venture building, Mark Mitchell mentioned at business advocacy group Oceantic Community’s 2025 Worldwide Partnering Discussion board in Virginia Seashore, Va., an occasion that coincided with each the timing and placement of the LS GreenLink facility groundbreaking. 

Talking on the similar convention, Bon-Kyu Koo, CEO of LS GreenLink’s mother or father firm, mentioned he’s extra targeted on the sector’s long-term fortunes.

“We’ll have our ups and downs, however in case you take a look at the lengthy interval curve, this will likely be a curve that can now be going up,” Koo mentioned. Taking such a perspective, he added, means “we don’t fear an excessive amount of.”