MetOx Wins $80 Million From the US Department of Energy for a Domestic HTS Wire Plant
MetOx has been selected for an $80 million award from the United States Department of Energy to build the country’s first large-scale high-temperature superconductor wire factory. The project, called Project Arch, is aimed at building domestic capacity for a wire the US has mostly imported. Construction was set to begin in 2025, and the company later chose North Carolina for the site.
The award funds the first large-scale US HTS wire plant
On 22 October 2024, MetOx announced it had secured $80 million in Department of Energy (DOE) funding to build Project Arch, described as the first large-scale high-temperature superconductor (HTS) wire production facility of its kind in the United States. The plant is to be built in the southeastern US, with construction beginning in 2025 and more than 200 high-tech jobs created.
The strategic point is supply. A handful of manufacturers in Asia and Europe dominate HTS wire production, and demand from fusion and the grid is rising fast. A domestic plant reduces US reliance on imports for a material it treats as critical to the clean-energy build-out.
North Carolina followed as the chosen site
MetOx later confirmed the location. In December 2024 the state of North Carolina announced that MetOx would build the facility in Chatham County, a $193.7 million investment expected to create 333 jobs. The plant will produce the company’s Xeus HTS wire.
The wire is the bottleneck the plant targets
HTS wire is rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) coated conductor, the second-generation superconductor described in our materials guide and manufacturing explainer. It carries far more current than copper of the same cross-section, which is what makes it valuable for compact fusion magnets and dense urban power links.
Building that wire at scale in the US is the aim of Project Arch, and it places MetOx among the manufacturers working to turn a specialist product into an industrial one. For where that output is headed, see where the tape goes.