AML3D Expands into Utilities with Sale of Metal 3D Printer to the Tennessee Valley Authority

AML3D, an Australian original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of wire-arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) systems, has sold a 6700 Edition ARCEMY X machine to Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the US’s largest public utility and one of the nation’s largest power suppliers. The A$2.27 million (~$1.5 million) machine, the largest that AML3D sells, will be installed at TVA’s service facility in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

AML3D has undergone rapid growth over the last couple of years thanks to a strategy of targeting the US defense industrial base, and the Navy’s submarine industrial base (SIB) program, in particular. At the end of last month, the company announced that it had raised around $20 million through a new share issuance, which AML3D will use to support its expansion plans in the US and Europe.

At the same time that AML3D has been pursuing its defense sector strategy, it has also continued to focus on maintaining its strength in oil & gas, with the company counting Exxon and Chevron as two of its customers. AML3D’s operations in the US, including this latest contract with the TVA, are bolstered by the company’s new Technology Center in Stowe, Ohio. The ARCEMY X destined for TVA will be the first system that the company manufactures in the US.

In a press release AML3D CEO Sean Ebert, said, “This ARCEMY X order from the TVA is very much aligned with the US Scale Up growth strategy we have in place. When we launched the US Scale Up strategy, back in February 2023, our focus was on the defense sector, in the first instance, and that has already delivered close to A$14 million of contract wins.

The next step in the strategy was always to expand beyond defense, so it is very pleasing to see our ARCEMY X system selected by the TVA. It demonstrates the relevance of ARCEMY across US manufacturing and how our US strategy will continue to accelerate growth and value creation. This entry into the US utilities sector also supports our decision to further expand our US facilities, funders by the recent capital raising, to meet the continuing growth in demand for our advanced manufacturing technology across the US.”

As important as the defense sector has been to the acceleration of AM adoption — especially in the US — it’s now even more important for the companies that have excelled in defense applications to diversify. That AML3D has even accomplished this at all is a crucial milestone, and the fact that its diversification efforts are in the utilities sector, specifically, makes the development all the more significant.

If there’s any sector that seems poised to match defense in terms of its needs for a rapid buildup of AM capabilities, it’s utilities. The combination of an unprecedented demand surge for electricity thanks to AI data centers, and aging power grids strained by labor and materials shortages, signals a business environment where advanced manufacturing technologies will play an increasingly vital role in the utilities value chain.

Perhaps the most intriguing angle to this AML3D contract is that it was competitively awarded, echoing the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA’s) first competitively awarded contract for AM parts that was announced just a few weeks ago. The emergence of these sorts of parallels between defense and other strategic sectors is exactly what we should be looking for, as an indicator that the US’s AM buildup has broadened beyond military applications.

Images courtesy of AML3D