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High voltage manufacturing site in Karlskrona, Sweden

NKT Lighthouse – our new extrusion tower

About us
Production
Karlskrona

Key geographical location – close to Europe’s offshore wind market

We are a leading supplier for renewable power transition - more than 50 awarded projects for offshore wind since 2010. EU aims to be climate neutral in 2050 with 300 GW renewable wind power – that will need a 25-fold increase in offshore wind capacity by 2050. We have been investing in our HV factory in Karlskrona heavily since 2012 to meet these demands. The biggest investments have been the office and factory expansion, the cable-laying vessel (NKT Victoria), the new harbor and a new test laboratory. Our newest pride and joy will be the second cable tower, NKT Lighthouse.

Our HV cable systems are connecting countries and bringing energy from one place to another:

Hydro power from Sweden and Norway
Wind power from Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands and UK

Facts on the new tower, NKT Lighthouse

With its 150 meters, the lighthouse outside Alexandria's harbour was an impressive sight. A clear guide for sailors on their way to one of the most important cities of antiquity. Such a unique edifice that it was considered one of the seven wonders of antiquity. So why start a text about the construction of a process tower in Karlskrona by telling a story about the lighthouse outside Alexandria? Where is the connection?

When the king, Karl XI, founded Karlskrona in 1680, he put his most talented city planners and architects to work on planning and designing the new naval city. Erik Dahlbergh, one of the most well-known architects of the time, was commissioned to draw a landmark, a new belfry adjacent to the naval port. His inspiration and role model for the project became the lighthouse in Alexandria.

Today, Karlskrona is a World Heritage City. A stone's throw from the city centre, is the location of NKT's world-leading process for cable manufacturing. This process requires a new building with a unique structure and design. With a building height of 150 meters, it will be a prominent building close to the old naval city of Karlskrona.

The city's history of shipping provided early role models for the design. Lighthouses are iconic buildings with strong symbolic values. Signpost, bright and stable are words that define lighthouses. The words also describe NKT's participation in the future. A future that places high demands on high-tech and innovative solutions for rapid energy conversion.

NKT's new cable manufacturing tower is the lighthouse of the new era. A 150-meter-high concrete tower with an interior defined by structure and order for a high-tech manufacturing process.

Like all lighthouses, NKT's cable tower also has a glass prism at the top.

A prism that with its design challenges and move boundaries.

A prism that sends signals and guides.

The new tower is a high-tech lighthouse, a stable signpost to the future.

Thomas Lind, Senior Architect

AUR arkitekter AB

In the tower, NKT will produce power cables up to 640 kV

In the tower, the insulation system of the cable is applied through extrusion. The high tower is needed for the cooling of the cable which is hanging in a vertical position.

The cables could be produced for up to 640,000 volt direct current (DC) and 3 gigawatt – equivalent to the power for all households in Denmark.

Overview of capacity expansion project at NKT’s Karlskrona plant: Highlights of investment

Site XLPE extrusion capacity increase - making it one of the world’s largest sea cable production plant (seen with MI and XLPE)
Construction of new 150 m cable tower – one of Sweden’s tallest towers
Increase by up to 100 jobs – making it NKTs largest production site – and driving construction work employment as well as sub-contractors in Sweden.