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Prysmian Group creating renewable energy hub in United States at Brayton Point

renewable energy

Prysmian Group is investing $200 million to build a new submarine cables factory at Brayton Point, partnering with the commonwealth of Massachusetts and town of Somerset to create a supply hub for essential components for renewable energy production to support the U.S. energy transition.

The Brayton Point plant will be a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility on 47 acres located on the Atlantic Coast about 50 miles south of Boston that will create jobs, boost the region’s economy and contribute to a stronger community. It will be the first location in North America with the capability to produce these advanced submarine cable products.

Group will manufacture innovative submarine inter-array and export cables up to 275 kV AC or 525 kV DC that are needed to US connect offshore wind farms to mainland power grids. These cables will be used to deliver power from several new offshore wind farms, vital to U.S. President Joe Biden’s goal of installing 30 GW in offshore wind power by 2030 to achieve the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources.

The plant will also have an R&D facility with a high-voltage test lab, which will be the first of its kind in the United States.

Until five years ago, Brayton Point was the site of a towering fifty-year-old power plant with a cooling tower 500 feet high, the largest of its kind in New England, which could power one in five Massachusetts homes and businesses. It was closed as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to the climate emergency. President Biden used his visit to Brayton Point in July 2022 to lay out new measures to combat climate change approved in the summer of 2022 reducing carbon emissions by roughly 40% by 2030. In his speech at the site, Biden recalled how the old plant had polluted the air for miles around, and praised the plan for a new cables factory there.

“Today, Brayton is on the frontier of clean energy in America,” said Biden in a live speech from Brayton Point. “On this site, they’ll manufacture 248 miles of high-tech, heavy-duty cables. Those specialized, subsea cables are necessary to tie offshore wind farms to the existing grid. Manufacturing these cables will mean good-paying jobs for 250 workers — as many workers as the old power plant had at its peak."

In addition to being a fundamental asset for offshore wind production in the U.S., Prysmian’s investment will play a positive role in the community, developing Brayton Point into a strategic knowledge and production center supporting the sustainable development of this area, and creating new quality jobs and opportunities.

Prysmian Group has 28 manufacturing facilities, eight distribution facilities, six research and development centers, and more than 5,800 employees in North America, making it the largest cable manufacturer in the region. In 2018, Prysmian Group acquired General Cable and has heavily invested in plant expansions and modernization across North America.

Prysmian’s U.S. track record includes the milestones submarine cable interconnection projects like Neptune, TransBay and Hudson Transmission, as well as the SOO Green HVDC link awarded in 2021. Prysmian has two projects in the works for Vineyard Wind: the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm cabling project for which submarine cable installation operations began in November 2022, and the €900 million Commonwealth Wind and Park City projects. Other U.S. windfarm projects awarded to Prysmian Group include the €630 million project to link the 2.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) wind farm to the mainland grid, and the Empire Wind inter-array cable.