How the Deep Sea Cables That Power the World Are Made

On a recent spring day, a chunky, 560-foot-long ship with a bulbous nose and a stern bristling with heavy equipment sat at the end of a slender quarter-mile pier off the forested coast of Finland.The vessel, called the Monna Lisa, which was recently built in Romania for about 30 million euros, will serve as an important instrument in the expansion and reconfiguring of electric power systems around the world.Over a week’s time, about 80 miles of high-voltage cable snaked out from a factory to the boat, where it was coiled into tall stacks on big turntables.This complex in Pikkala, on the outskirts of Helsinki, the Finnish capital, is one of the few places in the world that can produce conduits with the capacity to link countries and the durability to withstand the rigors of the ocean depths.Electric power is no longer the humdrum industry it used to be. In the next decades, the world is expected to experience increased demand for electricity to feed a variety of needs, from data centers to electric vehicles. The power grid itself is also being modernized and extended to reach new sources of generation and trade energy across borders.A vessel, called the Monna Lisa, is docked at a pier off the coast Finland to load cable aboard.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

On a recent spring day, a chunky, 560-foot-long ship with a bulbous nose and a stern bristling with heavy equipment sat at the end of a slender quarter-mile pier off the forested coast of Finland.

The vessel, called the Monna Lisa, which was recently built in Romania for about 30 million euros, will serve as an important instrument in the expansion and reconfiguring of electric power systems around the world.

Over a week’s time, about 80 miles of high-voltage cable snaked out from a factory to the boat, where it was coiled into tall stacks on big turntables.

This complex in Pikkala, on the outskirts of Helsinki, the Finnish capital, is one of the few places in the world that can produce conduits with the capacity to link countries and the durability to withstand the rigors of the ocean depths.

Electric power is no longer the humdrum industry it used to be. In the next decades, the world is expected to experience increased demand for electricity to feed a variety of needs, from data centers to electric vehicles. The power grid itself is also being modernized and extended to reach new sources of generation and trade energy across borders.