ABB has invested in the new equipment development, manufacturing and testing facilities to enable this new technology to be used commercially. This ABB equipment has been under successful test operation at 850kV DC since 2006 at the STRI Laboratory in Sweden. US Investment in HVDC ABB sees this as an area of major opportunity: Enrique Santacana, head of ABB in the United States and the rest of North America, announced at a press briefing in Houston that ABB plans to invest about $90 million to build a new high-voltage cable factory in the United States. This is to meet the strong growth in demand for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) applications in overlay grids being developed to complement the AC grids in use in Europe and the United States.The Terwiesch presentation did pay particular attention to the convergence and commonalities between power and automation systems.