South Korea’s LS Cable & System reported that one of its subsidiaries has received an order for extra-high voltage cable from Vietnam Electricity (EVN), the Southeast Asian country’s state-owned electricity utility.

A press release said that the cables will be installed in infrastructure projects for Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport and an industrial complex in the northeastern part of the country. LS Eco Energy produces extra-high voltage cables in its Vietnam plant and accounts for 80% of the local cable market. It also exports Vietnamese-made cables to Europe and North America.

LS Cable owns a 67% stake in LS Eco Energy.

EVN notes that the need for power is acute in Vietnam. It reported that increasing national power consumption is straining the resources that must be able to handle intense hot and muggy weather. The National Load Dispatch Center said that on May 28, national power consumption in a single day surpassed 1 billion kWh, and on June 14 its usage set a record peak of 1.02 billion kWh.

LS Eco Energy, a subsidiary of South Korea’s LS Cable and System, has obtained safety certification for underground residential distribution (URD) power cables from UL, a prominent U.S. safety certification organization.

A press release said that, with the UL certification, the comany plans to expand its export product range for the U.S., adding to its existing line of LAN (UTP) cables. “We expect this certification to play a critical role in expanding our presence in the U.S. market and enhancing our competitiveness in the global power cable market,” said LS Eco Energy CEO Lee Sung-ho.

The company, in collaboration with LS Cable America, intends to ramp up marketing efforts targeting power plant construction companies and power authorities to accelerate its market penetration. The URD power cables are primarily used in various distribution networks connecting solar power plants and data centers (IDCs), both of which have seen strong demand. Also boosting demand is recently imposed high  U.S. tariffs on Chinese aluminum that has led to a surge in sales of aluminum conductor URD cables from non-Chinese sources.

Due to the U.S.’s policy of excluding Chinese products, the LAN cables produced at LS Eco Energy’s Ho Chi Minh manufacturing subsidiary, LSCV, saw over a 30% increase in exports to the U.S. in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.

South Korea’s LS Cable & System (LS C&S) has accused Taihan Electric Wire (TEW) of technology theft related to the design and layout of its new submarine cable manufacturing equipment.

Per multiple media reports, LS C&S claimed that TEW illicitly obtained the design and layout of LS Cable & System’s specialized equipment used in the production of submarine cables. Those are important as making and moving cables that can span tens of km and weigh thousands of tons reflect the company’s expertise that is a key part of its intellectual property.

The disagreement reached a new level on July 11, when police considered TEW as a suspect for violating the “Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act” and conducted a raid on its headquarters. A statement by LS C&S stated that the “theft of technology by Taihan Electric Wire is a clear criminal act,” and declared that if the allegations are proven true, the company will pursue all legal actions.

At issue was whether information about the floor plan that LS C&S had provided an architectural firm that later worked for TEW was improperly passed along. TEW recently held the official opening of a new submarine cable plant in the Godae district of the Asan National Industrial Complex in Dangjin-si, Chungcheongnam-do, and now plans to build a second such plant there that will be completed in 2026, and operational in 2027.

TEW issued a statement denying the allegations. “(Our) submarine cable factory layout is not a core technology, and there is absolutely no reason to secure a competitor’s layout and drawings for the purpose of technology theft.” It countered that LS S&C has a monopoly in South Korea, and that the country needs to have more competition to protect its market from foreign companies.

South Korea’s LS Cable & System announced that an investment of approximately 1 trillion won (about $721.34 million) will be made for its subsidiary—LS Greenlink USA—to build the largest U.S. submarine cable factory.

Per an article in BusinessKorea, the factory will be built on a 396,700-sq-m site along the Elizabeth River in Chesapeake, Virginia. It will have a total floor area of 70,000 sq. m. Construction is set to begin in 2025 and is expected to be completed by 2027. The facility will also feature a 200-m-tall power cable production tower, which it noted would be the tallest of its kind in the world. It will have more than 300 employees.

LS Cable & System will receive about $48 million (some 66.5 billion won) in subsidies and tax benefits from the state government. Including $99 million (some 137.2 billion won) from the Department of Energy (DOE) under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the company has secured a total of $147 million (about 202.7 billion won) in support. “This marks the largest support package for any global cable company operating in the U.S.”

The story cited other company activity, including construction of large cable installation vessels by LS Marine Solutions and the expansion of LS Eco Energy’s submarine projects in Europe. In related news, LS Cable & System also recently announced it is building a new manufacturing plant in Queretaro, Mexico, that will produce large capacity busway systems for both the U.S. and international markets. It will be located on a large site in an industrial complex. Construction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025.

South Korea’s LS Cable & System announced that it has signed a contract with TenneT Offshore to supply high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cables worth about

1.5 trillion won ($1.2 bil1ion).

A press release said that LS Cable & System, in a consortium with Belgian construction companies Jan De Nul and Denys, has won a total of four projects connecting the North Sea to Germany. Under two of the contracts, LS Cable & System will supply submarine and underground cables starting in 2026. The remaining two contracts are expected to be awarded sequentially through 2026.

The projects stem from a 2022 agreement by Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany to jointly install 65 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power by 2030. TenneT will participate in the project, which will supply up to 35 million homes with green wind energy.

“Although power grid construction projects are becoming more active around the world, HVDC cables require large-scale investment and high technical skills, so a small number of global wire companies such as LS Cable & System occupy most of the market,” said an official from LS Cable & System.

The below piece ran in the Asia Focus section of WJI's October issue

The search for a room-temperature superconductive material has long been pursued, but so far it has remained a scientific theory. There is widespread interest in recent claims from South Korean researchers who believe that LK-99 could be for real. While further assessment of K-99 may well show that it is not “for real,” that possibility is hard to ignore.

Word that a new superconductor—LK-99—can work at room temperatures or higher, and at ambient pressure, recently fueled an online frenzy that led to much discussion as to whether it could for real. By press time, the story that broke in July and was abuzz in early August may not just be yesterday’s news, but yesterday’s news refuted, as there are many questions about the concept from Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim, and colleagues, of South Korea’s Quantum Energy Research Centre.

Per Wikipedia, LK-99 is a potential room-temperature superconductor with a gray-black appearance that is said to have a hexagonal structure that is slightly modified from lead‒apatite by adding small amounts of copper. In 1999, a Korea University team led by Lee and Kim claimed that the material acts as a superconductor at temperatures below 400 K (127°C/260°F) and at ambient pressure. Not much happened until recently, when a July 22 technical paper by Lee and Kim (their names led to the LK-99 tag) jolted the technical field as they implied that room-temperature capability may be possible.

On Aug. 4, 2023, a report sent to SBS News said that high-quality LK-99 samples may exhibit diamagnetism 5,450 times greater than graphite, while low-quality samples may demonstrate an effect up to 23 times stronger. The only way that could be, the report said, is if the substance is a superconductor.

A recent story in BusinessKorea said that the Korean Superconductivity Society recently established a committee of experts to verify LK-99, a room-temperature superconductor developed by Korean researchers affiliated with the Quantum Energy Research Center (QERC) among others. The society said it plans to provide samples produced by the QERC for testing.

While LK-99 would be a stunning advance if it was found to be scientifically verified, several wire and cable manufacturers have been working on them, albeit with technology that does not work at room temperatures.

In 2021, South Korea’s LS Cable & System developed a next-generation 23 kV triaxial superconducting cable and obtained an IEC on the product. Currently, only three companies in the world can make superconducting cables, and LS Cable & System notes that it is the only one that established an international standard for a triaxial superconducting cable.
WJI asked LS Cable & System whether it was involved in any way with the research into LK-99, and got the following reply. “The superconducting cable commercialized by LS Cable & System is a product with a different technology from LK-99, which has recently become an issue.”

That response did not state that South Korea’s LS Cable & System was not interested in the potential of LK-99, only that at this point it is not part of the current activity.

LK-99 technology is worth pursuing as multiple reports note that its hoped-for potential would be an amazing advance. It has been likened to the search for the Holy Grail, yet it also evokes decades-old memories of claims of “cold fusion” for nuclear energy that never materialized. And yes, there are skeptics for LK-99.

To date, there has been no scientific validation of LK-99, although there was one report of observed superconductivity at 110 K by a team from Southeast University, China. However, the absence of the Meissner effect (a defining characteristic of superconductors) was questioned as well as the testing method.

There has been considerable response, most doubting the accuracy of the claims. An article published by Time said that on July 31, researchers from the National Physical Laboratory of India uploaded a paper that found that LK-99 is not superconductive. Veerpal Singh Awana, chief scientist at the National Physical Laboratory, posted details online outlining his group’s unsuccessful efforts to replicate the findings. Also, researchers from Beihang University in Beijing uploaded a paper on July 31 that found that LK-99 is not superconductive.
Other warning flags were that there was no heat anomaly test and no definition of “zero resistance.”

An editorial in The Hindu was blunt. “For another claim this year, of a material that reportedly superconducts near room temperature and under much less pressure than others of its kind, its originators shared instructions to synthesize it but refused to share samples, claiming they constituted intellectual property. While this may be, their refusal vitiated the proper process of science in the face of such an extraordinary claim.”

Another on-line article, in the Korean Joongang Daily, said that a researcher from the Korea Institute of Energy Technology (Kentech) “confirmed that the crystal structure of LK-99 is in line with what has been suggested in manuscripts put forward by the Korean scientists, according to local media reports.” At the same time, it noted that The Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics looking into the claims believes that “based on the studies and footage, the material appearing in the research and the footage cannot be considered as a room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor.”

But for now, LK-99 is front and center, and multiple Korean researchers are assessing the technology. If it is deemed feasible, more than one wire and cable manufacturer would be very, very interested.

South Korea’s LS Cable & System (LS C&S) reported that it has signed an agreement to supply high-voltage submarine cable to Ørsted for renewable energy projects in Taiwan, where it notes that it has done extremely well.

A press release said that LS C&S will supply the cable for Denmark’s Ørsted—which it has partnered successfully with—for use in its Greater Changhua 2b and 4 offshore wind projects in Taiwan. Located 35 to 60 km from the Changhua coast in western Taiwan, it will be among the largest offshore wind farms in the Asia-Pacific region when it is completed at the end of 2025, able to generate 920 MW of renewable energy.

With the latest order, LS C&S has supplier rights for all eight projects of the Taiwan’s Phase 1 Offshore Windfarm Construction Projects. The accumulated amount of orders since 2019 are worth approximately 1 trillion won (about $776 million).

Taiwan is planning to complete the construction of offshore wind farms with total output of 5.5 GW through the first phase of the project by 2025 and will build additional offshore wind farms for an additional output of 15 GW by 2035. “We expect additional orders to be placed from Taiwan and estimate that the submarine cable market will be worth around 3 trillion won (about $2.328 billion),” an LS C&S spokesperson said.

The release said that LS C&S expects to see further positive results from its relationship with South Korea’s KT Submarine. Last December, LS C&S paid about $19.3 million to acquire 16% of the share of KT Submarine, an underwater construction firm that provides installation and repair services for submarine cable.

LS C&S notes it also has a call option that it can exercise that would enable it to be the largest shareholder in the company. Further, there are only about five companies in the world capable of both submarine cable manufacturing and construction, and LS C&S is the only company in Korea to be capable of such services.

LS Cable & System (LS C&S) has completed what it described as Asia’s largest high-voltage direct current (HVDC) underwater cable production plant in Donghae, Gangwon Province, South Korea.

A press release said that the Donghae plant, named Submarine Building 4, is a 172-m-tall vertical continuous vulcanization (VCV) tower with a total floor area spanning 34,816 sq m. Approximately $141 million was spent since construction that started in July 2021.

Since building South Korea’s first submarine cable plant in 2008, LS C&S has made significant investments in its submarine business. The company also recently purchased stakes in KT Submarine, a submarine cable maker, becoming the largest shareholder (43.8%).

“The completion of this HVDC plant will serve as an accelerator for growth in the era of energy transition and the rise of the power industry,” said LS C&S CEO Koo Bon-gyu. “We will contribute to the advancement of the electric power industry through the construction of efficient energy networks and the enhancement of national competitiveness.”

Last December, LS C&S won a contract to supply HVDC cables to the Vanguard Wind Power Complex in the U.K., Korea’s largest cable deal signed to date in Europe.
More than 100 key persons—including LS Group Chairman Koo Ja-eun, LS Corp, CEO Myung Roe-hyun and LS C&S CEO Koo Bon-kyu —attended the completion ceremony.