Malaysia’s Southern Cable Group Bhd reports that it has won a contract to supply underground cables and conductors to Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), the nation’s utility giant. It also said that it wants to target the U.S. market.

Per an article in themalaysianreserve.com, the newest contract follows an addendum contract worth about US$7 million won by Southern Cable Sdn Bhd, its wholly owned subsidiary, secured in April 2023. To date, orders from TNB have been about $94 million. More than 80% of Southern Cable’s annual revenue typically comes from sales of power cables and wires. It notes that sales from January 2021 through 2022 saw annual compound growth of 27.8%.

Southern Cable, a registered supplier of wire and cable for TNB for the past 19 years, has a strong business relationship with the utility provider. It also supplies other utility providers such as Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd and Sarawak Energy Bhd. Its sales include power cables and wires, aluminum rods and supply and installation of rectifier systems for 5G networks.

Regarding the sales to the U.S., an article in another Malaysian publication, The Star, said the company is applying for U.L. certification for some new products it would like to market to the U.S.

TenneT, Netherland’s transmission system operator (TSO), has commissioned NKT, Nexans and a consortium of LS Cable, Jan De Nul and Denys to supply and lay some 7,000 km of power cable for offshore and onshore use that is valued at some €5.5 billion.

A press release said that TenneT, which serves as TSO for the Netherlands, and a significant part of Germany, owns and operates over 25,000 km of H-V lines and cables. It is now expanding that scope through 525 kV direct current cable systems for corresponding grid expansion projects. The company is completing the major tenders for grid connection systems that it started last year with this second framework agreement. These include 14 offshore connections, five of which had already been commissioned by the Dutch at the beginning of
2023, and one direct current project on land. The breakdowns for the orders are as follows.

NKT. The company will be responsible for connections for Nederwiek 3 in Geertruidenberg or Moerdijk, and Doordewind 1 and Doordewind 2, in Eemshaven. The order includes approximately 100 km of onshore cables as well as 300 km offshore cables divided into three onshore and two offshore sections to avoid cable laying in the submarine Capbreton Canyon. NKT will produce the power cables at the high-voltage factory in Karlskrona, Sweden, with expected commissioning of the full project by 2028.

Nexans. The company has received the order for the cable of the offshore projects BalWin3 and LanWin4 to be connected in Wilhelmshaven, as well as that of LanWin2, which leads to the Heide area in Schleswig-Holstein.

LS Cable consortium. The consortium of LS Cable, Jan De Nul, and Denys will be responsible for the other cable systems for the projects in Lower Saxony. These include BalWin4 and LanWin1, both of which are to be connected in the Unterweser area. The portfolio also includes LanWin5, which has its onshore network connection point in the Rastede area. The consortium has also been awarded the contract for the TenneT-side part of the 525 kV onshore DC project NordOstLink in Schleswig-Holstein. NordOstLink is a TenneT partner project with the transmission system operator 50Hertz.

The collective scope of the contracts includes cable design and engineering, production, delivery, project management and subsequent onshore and offshore laying of the 525 kV DC cables. Work will start in 2023, with onshore cable laying after 2025. At sea, cable-laying work is expected to begin in 2026. The offshore projects, each with a transmission capacity of 2 gigawatts, are expected to be operational by 2031 and NordOstLink by 2032.

TenneT COO Tim Meyerjürgens said that the project is an essential step for energy transition. “Together, with this award alone, we will implement around 7,000 km of DC cable for onshore and offshore grid connection systems in Germany and the Netherlands by 2032.” Each 2GW cable system will have a positive and negative conductor, a metallic return conductor and a fiber optic cable.

The Prysmian Group has received the notification from SSEN Transmission and National Grid Electricity Transmission plc, the GB electricity transmission network owners, selecting them as the exclusive preferred bidder for the Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) cable connection.

A press release said that the Prysmian Group continues the contract negotiations with the aim of concluding the contract in a timely manner. Eastern Green Link 2 is a planned high voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine and underground cable link of around 500 km route length between Peterhead in Scotland and Drax in the North of England. With a power transmission capacity of 2 GW, it is expected to be one of the first cable systems in the U.K. to utilize 525 kV technology with extruded XLPE insulation.

EGL2 forms part of a series of planned system reinforcements required to increase the capability of the existing U.K. transmission network and facilitate renewable generation in the North to demand centers to the South, supporting the target of enabling 50 GW offshore wind generation by 2030 and achieving a Net Zero economy by 2050, the release said.

SSEN Transmission, operating under license held by Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission plc, owns, operates and develops the high-voltage electricity transmission system in the north of Scotland and remote islands. Its network includes 132 kV, 220 kV, 275 kV and 400 kV electricity transmission.

Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation announced that it has received “the golden License” to build the largest factory worldwide for the production of electric vehicles’ (EVs) wiring harness in Egypt with around $100 million in investment, according to a statement by General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI).

The project, announced last September, calls for the site to extend over an area of 150,000 square meters under the free zone system. It includes a raw material storage warehouse to be used as a distribution hub for North and Middle Africa. Production is set to be exported to global manufacturers of cars in Europe and the Middle East. During a recent meeting, GAFI
CEO Hossam Haiba and officials from Sumitomo discussed the company’s expansion plan in Egypt for coming period as well as the aspects of support provided by the Egyptian government to back the Japanese company’s investments.