It will take power for 660 MW, also from renewable sources, to the hearth of Manhattan.
Milan, May 25, 2011 – Prysmian Cables & Systems, world leader in the energy and telecommunications cables industry, has been awarded a contract worth in excess of $ 175 million by Hudson Transmission Partners, LLC, for the development of a new strategic underground and submarine power link between New York City and the New Jersey transmission grid as part of a larger contract awarded to the consortium of Prysmian and Siemens Energy.

Prysmian will be responsible for the design, supply and installation of a 345 kV High Voltage Alternate Current (HVAC) land and submarine transmission line that will run along a total route of approximately 7.5 miles (13 km) to transfer 660 MW of existing power from the transmission grid in Ridgefield, New Jersey to New York City. Siemens will build the back-to-back converter station located in Ridgefield, NJ. Completion of the project is expected to occur during the third quarter of 2013.

The Hudson Project is of strategic importance for the City of New York where energy load is constantly increasing. It will help replace resources that may be retired over the next several years as well as strengthen the overall reliability of the power supply system in NYC as a long-term infrastructure asset. Upon completion, the Hudson Project is expected to provide New York City customers access to more diverse sources of power, including renewable sources and natural gas.

Prysmian will install a bundle of three high voltage submarine cables and two optical fiber data transmission cables under a portion of the Hudson River using its own cable-laying ship, the Giulio Verne. The submarine cable system will be buried in bundle below the river bottom at depths ranging from 10 to 15 feet using the Prysmian’s designed hydro-plow machine. The submarine cables will be produced at Prysmian’s Arco Felice, Italy plant.

The majority of the high voltage land cables will be produced at Prysmian’s new state-of-the-art VCV factory in Abbeville, South Carolina and will be installed by Prysmian’s installation services group located in New Jersey. The Prysmian US content in the project will be completed by the supply and installation of land fiber cables produced in the Lexington Fiber Optic cabling facility. In New York City the underground cable system will be installed under City streets for approximately 0.4 miles to the ConEd West 49th Street substation.

When complete, the Hudson Project will be the second major power transmission infrastructure project built by Prysmian in the New York and New Jersey areas in recent years, following the 2007 completion of the 500 kV Neptune project. In the US, also, last year, Prysmian completed successfully the construction of the Trans Bay Cable project, a 200 kV HVDC submarine power link between the cities of Pittsburg, CA and San Francisco.

North America represents one of the main markets for the Group. The Abbeville state-of-the-art plant completed in 2009 - first facility for the production of Extra High Voltage cables in North America – will allow Prysmian to support the major public utilities in the country to develop and upgrade their power grids.