To hear Anthony Allard tell it, the companies that make equipment for the grid — things like high-voltage switchgear and circuit breakers — are in the middle of a “super cycle” that will last at least a decade or two.
Mr. Allard, who heads Hitachi Energy’s North America business, said demand for these products accelerated at such a pace in recent years that it caught the industry that supplies them unprepared.
“All of a sudden, the world started to invest much more in the grid,” Mr. Allard said. “And the industry was kind of caught by surprise, including ourselves.
“Now we’re doing our best to catch up.”
Part of that catching up is happening at Hitachi Energy’s Mount Pleasant factory in East Huntingdon, which is undergoing a $70 million expansion.
The existing facility makes high-voltage equipment and is doubling its capacity there, as well as building out a new production space in nearby Hunker for other components, like surge arresters.
The investment is part of the $155 million in capital that the firm pledged in September to bolster its production capacity in North America. That also included expanding factories in Virginia and Mexico.
At the time, Hitachi Energy said it would spend $60 million on the Mount Pleasant facility. It has since increased that to $70 million.
The expansion comes with 100 new jobs, in addition to the 500 employees already at the facility, and two state grants totaling $329,000.
Hitachi Energy isn’t the only grid component manufacturer with expansion news in the region.
Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc. is building an $86 million switchgear factory in Beaver County. Cleveland-based Eaton Corp. announced a $340 million investment in a new transformer factory in South Carolina earlier this year.
The demand is coming from everywhere, Mr. Allard said — utilities, datacenter developers, renewable energy companies.
“Anyone who needs high power, needs our equipment,” he said.
And backlogs are growing.
According to an analysis by consulting firm Wood Mackenzie last April, the lead time for transformers has increased from around 50 weeks in 2021 to 120 weeks in 2024.
“The market needs more capacity,” Mr. Allard said.
Where as a few years ago it might be a matter of a few months to order and receive a circuit breaker, now it takes “two to three times” longer, he said.
Raw material costs that go into making grid equipment have risen too and may increase even more as a result of tariffs imposed by the U.S.
“In the U.S., only around 20% of transformer demand can be met by domestic supply,” the Wood Mackenzie analysis said.
The Mount Pleasant facility is exclusively tailored to serve the North American market, Hitachi Energy said, although its global supply chain isn’t immune to international trade moves.
“We do use global components that, based on the latest announcements, could be impacted by those tariffs,” Mr. Allard said.
But, he noted, the tariff situation is “fluid.”
Correction: This story was changed on April 9 to clarify the location of Hitachi Energy’s factory in Westmoreland County.
First Published: April 8, 2025, 11:18 p.m.
Updated: April 9, 2025, 2:00 p.m.
