What Wire 2026 Düsseldorf Told Us About CCA: Five Trends Turning Copper-Clad Aluminum from a 'Budget Alternative' into an Engineering Material
We walked the halls of Wire 2026 in Düsseldorf to find out where copper-clad aluminum is headed. Five patterns stood out: record-high copper prices making substitution strategic, high-frequency and data-center demand exploiting CCA's skin-effect parity, EV lightweighting pushing flat-wire CCA, sustainability forcing carbon-led sourcing, and termination and soldering finally maturing into standardized practice. Here's what to do about it.