Prysmian Williamsport Plant Director David Horton (left) gives a tour of the new facility that added 51,000 square feet and 27 additional permanent jobs to its Williamsport facility as a result of a supply and manufacturing agreement with Invenergy—America’s largest privately held independent power producer. The expanded facility will support America’s largest private sector-led transmission investment, Grain Belt Express, with its first order under the agreement to exclusively use U.S. steel and aluminum, representing a major investment in domestic energy supply chains. With the Invenergy agreement and expanded facility, Prysmian now supports almost 430+ jobs across Pennsylvania and over 270 just at the Williamsport facility and doubles U.S. manufacturing capacity for certain advanced transmission conductors. The event was held at the Williamsport Prysmian facility. DAVE KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette

A Williamsport manufacturer of conductor cable has become crucial in helping America to further gain energy independence.

“Critical energy infrastructure projects like Grain Belt Express represent a direct investment in America, our economy, and the domestic supply chain,” said Shashank Sane, Invenergy’s Executive Vice President for Transmission for the recent grand opening of an expansion at Prysmian, 409 Reighard Ave., Williamsport.

“Our partnership with Prysmian only furthers our commitment to the U.S. manufacturing workforce, a stronger grid, and American energy independence.”

The Prysmian facility expansion is supported by a long-term supply and manufacturing agreement announced in 2023 with Invenergy.

As a result, Prysmian will supply up to 12,500 miles of overhead conductors to support Invenergy’s portfolio of long-distance high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) transmission projects in the U.S., including Grain Belt Express, the largest electric transmission project in development in the U.S., and the New Mexico North Path and Cimarron Link lines.

This expansion doubles the United States’ ability to manufacture advanced transmission conductors with E3X® technology. Prysmian’s E3X® advanced conductor technology increases the capacity, efficiency, and reliability of transmission lines, allowing for more electric power to be transmitted with low losses and delivered across long distances without expanding the physical footprint of the project.

Invenergy’s own presence in Pennsylvania includes the 1,485-megawatt Lackawanna Energy Center, located just outside Scranton, the Electric City. Since coming online in 2018, Lackawanna continues to be the largest natural gas plant in this state and the largest operational project in Invenergy’s fleet.

Based in Highland Heights, Kentucky, Prysmian North America is considered to be a benchmark player in the energy expansion and digital transformation. Prysmian’s strategy is said to be aligned with the main market drivers by developing resilient, high-performing, sustainable, and innovative cable systems for the transmission, power grid, electricity and digital solutions segments. Prysmian’s North American operations include 29 plant locations and nearly 8,000 associates with net sales of $8 billion.

Globally, Prysmian is the largest cable solutions provider in the world, with more than 33,000 employees, 107 production plants and 27 R&D centers in over 50 countries. In 2024, global sales exceeded 17 billion Euros.

Invenergy’s Grain Belt Express

Grain Belt Express, an Invenergy project, is the largest private sector-led transmission project in U. S history.

An energy superhighway (pipeline) connecting four U.S. grid regions, Grain Belt Express will unleash up to 5,000 MW of American energy to enhance grid reliability and strengthen U.S. energy security. No infrastructure project in development today delivers more cost savings to American consumers than Grain Belt Express.

Srini Siripurapu, Chief Innovation and Research and Design Officer, Prysmian, told the Sun-Gazette before a tour of the facility that Prysmian has over 12 patents, including the E3X coating process and the robot that was on display for guests at the ceremony.

This coating process, he said, is water-based and not harmful to the environment and is about the thickness of a hair or 50 microns. It will last longer than the aluminum, he said, to laughter on the tour of the Williamsport plant.

As electric demand in the U.S. grows, with the introduction of data centers for information technology and artificial intelligence, Invenergy is developing new electricity transmission lines – which are basically pipelines for power, said Patrick Whitty, Invenergy’s senior vice president, public affairs, transmission.

“The project we are working on that will buy electric conductor cable from this facility – the Grain Belt Express – is the largest transmission line in development in the United States,” he said.

The Grain Belt Express will carry the amount of power equivalent to four nuclear power plants, he noted.

That is 5,000 MW of power, as stated, and consists of an 800-mile-long power line that starts in Kansas, crosses Missouri, crosses Illinois and delivers it at the Illinois-Indian state line.

That matters here in Pennsylvania for a couple of reasons.

“Invenergy has committed to buying 12,500 miles of conductor cable,” he said.

The examples of the silver cable – which move the electrons – was shown to the guests.

That is a power pipeline which gave Prysmian the certainty of its investment to permit the expansion of the facility.

Tying that back to Pennsylvania, it means local jobs and because of what is produced here electricity is expected to become more affordable, with Grain Belt Express projected to save American consumers $52 billion in its first 15 years of operations and it increases reliability, Whitty said.

“When you can lower the price of power you can increase reliability it allows more factories to make investments and more American workers to be put on the job,” he said. That is because power prices are a huge driver of the nation’s economy. It is a cycle that is bringing in dollars to invest in good-paying jobs for workers, he noted.

Legislators often discuss “grid reliability,” and Whitty said this is kind of like a company that takes older technology and transforms it into a newer generation. Transmission lines that can connect different regions of the U.S. are critical for grid reliability and power-demand is always changing, if you can move electricity from where it is available to where it is needed, that is how you create reliability and deliver savings.

Invenergy (a named derived from a combination of innovation and energy) has been working with Prysmian on this factory expansion since 2022. That long-term agreement of the 12,500 miles of cable Invenergy committed to buy then is what allowed Prysmian to move forward with the expansion and gave them that certainty, Whitty remarked.

“Projects like the Grain Belt Express and that supply agreement are enabling facility investments like this at Prysmian,” he said.

The reason that the Illinois-Indiana state line is vital is because it is where the grid region that serves Pennsylvania begins, that is called the PJM region.

PJM has, admittedly, faced a lot of challenges with electricity capacity and customer affordability, so getting that amount of power to the Illinois-Indiana state line allows it to get the PJM that serves Pennsylvania. “That’s a huge source of electricity that goes to Pennsylvania once this line goes on line.”