The Hidden Wire of 2025: America's HVDC Cable Bottleneck

A pause that revealed the bottleneck Think of the modern grid as a city growing into a region. Generation is the houses and offices. Cables are the highways and bridges. You can issue all the building permits you want; if the bridges are single-lane, everyone sits in traffic. High-voltage direct current (HVDC) is the long-distance expressway. It moves bulk power with low losses and it is the standard for offshore wind export cables and new interregional lines. But HVDC subsea and underground land cables are not commodities. They are precision-built in very tall factories using vertical continuous vulcanization towers that can exceed 600 feet. They require specialized copper or aluminum conductors, robust insulation, massive armoring for undersea segments, and quality assurance processes measured in meters of defect-free length. Then comes the other scarce asset: installation. A short list of heavy cable-lay vessels with giant carousels and dynamic positioning systems carry and bury cables along surveyed seabed routes. Vessels like Prysmian’s Leonardo da Vinci and Monna Lisa, Nexans’ Aurora, and NKT Victoria are booked by the project, season, and tide window. Getting a slot is more like reserving a launch window than booking a trucking company. If your foundations slip a quarter, your cable slot may slip a year. Add one more piece. Converter stations that turn alternating current into direct current and back again are complex industrial systems, and the same few suppliers that build cables also build key components or partner closely on interface standards. When developers try to place late orders or split packages across too many parties, schedule and interface risk climbs. All of this would be fine if supply were elastic. It is not. Building a new HVDC subsea cable factory takes three to four years, a deepwater quay, a very tall tower, high-capacity test labs, and a workforce that can pass meticulous quality standards. Building a single Jones Act-compliant cable-lay barge or ship is also multiyear work. ## The 2025 U.S. picture in one glance - Domestic capacity exists, but it is limited. Nexans’ Charleston, South Carolina plant can produce high-voltage subsea export cables and has supplied early U.S. projects. Its output is valuable but finite. - A new U.S. entrant is scaling. In April 2025, South Korea’s LS Cable broke ground on LS GreenLink, a large HVDC subsea cable facility in Chesapeake, Virginia, slated to begin production in 2028. Coverage emphasized the facility’s tall tower, port access, and job creation, signaling a serious long-term commitment to domestic cable supply. Industry reporting on the groundbreaking framed it as the largest of its kind in the country. - Additional U.S. moves are under way in land cables and accessories, and European groups continue to expand capacity on their home turf. But even with new towers on the horizon, order books for subsea and HVDC remain tight through the late 2020s. - Demand is rising faster than expected due to data centers, industrial loads, and electrification. For context on how hyperscale builds are reshaping utility plans, see AI's 2025 power land rush. Note that transformers are a parallel bottleneck; see the 2025 transformer crunch for how it intersects with cable timing. On the demand side, offshore wind did not vanish. Projects already financed continue to move. Interregional HVDC projects in the West, like SunZia and TransWest Express, are progressing on construction and terminals. Meanwhile, manufacturers will redirect capacity to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia rather than idle it, so the cable crunch can worsen even in a year when some projects slow. ## What this means for 2026 to 2030 If you develop offshore wind or long-haul transmission, the critical path is no longer the turbine and it is often not the permit. It is a chain that runs from route survey to cable design to factory slot to vessel slot to converter interfaces. The playbook needs to change to secure that chain early and de-risk the pieces that most often slip. Below is a pragmatic 2026 to 2030 playbook for states and developers that treats cables as the scarce resource they are. ## Pillar 1: Lock cable and vessel capacity first, not last - Place early, conditional orders tied to milestones. Structure cable supply agreements with notice-to-proceed gates that sit just after bankable permits but well before turbine final investment decision. You are reserving a production slot, not betting the farm. Use cancellation schedules that share downside and preserve relationship value. - Pair cable and install in a single package. One throat to choke on interfaces reduces claims and compresses schedule risk. If you keep separate packages, run a joint interface board with binding decision timelines and a pre-agreed arbitration path for field changes. - Reserve a lay window once routes are 80 percent defined. Cable-lay vessels are the new launch pads. Protect the window with weather and geotechnical allowances, and fund a small pot for real-time route adjustments based on live seabed data. - Buy spare length up front. A 5 to 7 percent overage, stored properly, is cheap insurance against burial challenges or a single damaged section. ## Pillar 2: Accelerate domestic manufacturing where it matters - Focus state incentives on the bottleneck. Tax abatements, industrial revenue bonds, and workforce grants should prioritize subsea and HVDC land cable plants with deepwater access and tall towers, plus test labs that certify at 525 kilovolt DC. Tie incentives to verified production milestones, not just groundbreaking. - Build the last mile at ports. Cable factories and installers both need laydown yards, heavy-lift quays, and dredged access. A state can shorten a factory schedule by pre-permitting quay upgrades and by funding a shared test berth for qualification pulls and bend tests. - Back a Jones Act nearshore capability. A U.S.-flagged cable-lay barge with a large carousel and burial tools can handle nearshore segments and repairs, freeing deepwater vessels for main runs. States can seed that with grants to shipyards and loan guarantees tied to firm offtake contracts. - Support workforce pipelines. Cable plants need jointers, test engineers, and quality techs. Fund paid apprenticeships with guaranteed job offers, and partner with community colleges on programs that teach splice prep, insulation chemistry fundamentals, and nondestructive testing. ## Pillar 3: Design HVDC-ready routes and landfalls - Prebuild ducts and vaults. At landfalls, install oversized, spare ducts and a pull vault during the first export cable job. That makes later campaigns faster and reduces environmental disturbance. For interregional lines, acquire rights of way wide enough for a second pole or future bipole from day one. - Standardize at 525 kilovolt DC when viable. Common voltage classes simplify procurement and spares. Avoid bespoke specifications unless the system case requires it. Standardize fiber pairs and jointing kits so repairs do not hinge on a single vendor part. - Bank geotechnical certainty early. Commit to full route geophysics and targeted geotechnical sampling one year earlier than your legacy plan. Every hour of survey reduces a week of claims. Share anonymized route risk data with suppliers to price burial difficulty accurately. ## Pillar 4: Tweak procurement to reward schedule certainty - Score bids on delivery confidence, not just price. Make factory slot evidence and vessel availability a weighted criterion. Require letters of intent for lay windows with named assets. - Allow indexation for metals and freight. Pushing commodity risk onto suppliers sounds tough until it blows up at financial close. Indexation paired with caps keeps projects bankable. - Prequalify two suppliers and split only when justified. Use mirror contracts and common interface control documents to keep the package coherent. - Pay for reliability. Offer milestone bonuses for early cable completion and liquidated damages that are meaningful but not punitive, with clear carve-outs for force majeure and documented seabed anomalies. ## What states can do in the 2026 legislative session - Create a cable capacity credit. Let developers earn bid credits when they show binding cable and vessel reservations that cover at least 70 percent of scope. This pushes capacity reservation forward in time without dictating suppliers. - Stand up a corridor bank. Pre-permit a set of HVDC-capable corridors and standardize environmental data collection to reduce duplicative studies. Treat transmission rights of way like critical infrastructure with fast-track adjudication for narrow disputes. For the policy path ahead, see the FERC Order 1920 transmission pivot. - Fund a cable repair co-op. Regional ratepayer-backed pools can buy and store spare cable lengths and jointing kits, plus underwrite a shared nearshore barge. Repairs then move in weeks, not quarters. - Align port policy with cable needs. Modify port grants to favor quay walls rated for heavy carousels, deep berths, and clear air draft. A mid-project berth delay can cost a season. ## What developers can do starting this quarter - Map the bottleneck chain. Treat cable supply, accessories, and lay vessels as your lead schedule. Build a single integrated timeline with firm hold points and decision gates. - Lock converter interfaces. If you are splitting converters and cables across suppliers, convene the interface team now. Freeze grounding schemes, sheath bonding, and fiber allocation before design maturity gives way to field improvisation. - Shift survey left. Commission full geophysical surveys and grab samples early, then invite your preferred installers to a risk workshop that prices burial and protection fairly. It is cheaper to find boulders on a heat map than with a stalled plough. - Negotiate spares and training. Insist on jointing training for at least two of your own technicians during factory acceptance. They will not lead repairs, but they will cut days off mobilization when something goes wrong. - Stage your cash. Align payment milestones to factory progress and long-lead procurement of conductor and insulation material. Suppliers can finance inventory; you are financing schedule. - Do the nearshore engineering now. Landfalls drive public interest and permitting complexity. The earlier you lock the horizontal directional drill path, the sooner your installer can commit a lay plan that protects the beach, the birds, and your budget. ## Interregional lines need the same discipline The lessons from offshore export cables apply to long HVDC corridors too. SunZia, TransWest Express, and the first phase of Grain Belt Express show that linear megaprojects live or die by early control of long-lead components. Converter valves, reactors, and smoothing capacitors have their own lead times, but it is the cable steel, conductor, and insulation slots that pinch first. States that want more interregional capacity should treat these projects like airports: secure the land, pre-permit critical segments, and help developers line up manufacturing and installation before the market overheats. ## What happens if we wait If the United States lets 2026 and 2027 pass without securing cable and vessel capacity, the consequences will be concrete. European grid expansions and interconnectors will soak up factory slots. Asia will keep ordering. Deepwater vessels will follow the firmest work. America will still build wind and solar, but more of it will bottle up behind congested nodes and delayed export systems. Consumers will pay for curtailment and backup fuel. That is not a theoretical risk. It is how constrained networks behave when the bridges lag the buildings. ## The good news inside the crunch This is fixable. A canceled factory in one state does not close the chapter. The U.S. has an operating subsea cable plant today, another large HVDC factory under construction, and a pipeline of grid projects that can anchor more. Ports are learning what cable quays need. Shipyards can deliver a capable nearshore barge with firm demand. And the talent is there, from experienced union electricians to veterans of petrochemical plants who can bring quality culture to cable production. The playbook is not glamorous. It is contracts, corridors, and quays. But projects that put cables at the center of their 2026 to 2030 plans will be the ones that deliver power on time, at a price that survives real-world shocks. ## Conclusion: Build the bridges first The transition will be measured not by how many turbines we authorize but by how many electrons we move. Cables are the bridges and tunnels of that movement. The headlines of 2025 made the constraint visible. The decisions we make in the next four budget cycles will decide whether America treats cables as an afterthought or the first thought. Build the bridges first, and the rest of the city can rise.