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.