Hitachi Energy invests a further $4.5B to expand the electricity grid

Hitachi Energy will invest an additional $4.5 billion by 2027 to strengthen the electricity grid and accelerate the clean energy transition.

Global tech company Hitachi Energy’s order backlog has more than tripled to over $30 billion since 2020. In just the last month, Hitachi Energy says it signed key HVDC framework agreements with RTE in France, RWE in Germany, and Marinus Link in Australia, as well as a service contract with Pattern Energy in the US for the SunZia Transmission Project. The company also announced the Sa.Co.I.3 interconnection between Italy and France.

So, the Zurich-headquartered company said on Friday that it will more than double its new investments over the last three years in manufacturing, engineering, digital, R&D, and partnerships across all major markets from 2024 to 2027.

This complements its $1.5 billion investment announced in April to ramp up global transformer production.

Integrating more renewable energy sources like solar and wind requires a secure and flexible grid infrastructure. Claudio Facchin, CEO of Hitachi Energy, said:

The world is in a race to transform energy systems. Technology is not the bottleneck and electrification is creating unprecedented demand for power grids systems combined with digital solutions and services. As the market leader, we are responding with an unprecedented level of investment, people, and innovation to meet that demand.

Hitachi Energy will deploy power electronics-based solutions, grid automation and software solutions, and services, and it will engineer and manufacture high-voltage direct current (HVDC) and high-voltage products.

The company will invest around $330 million across all product portfolios to expand and modernize its flagship factory in Ludvika and open a new campus in Vasteras, both in Sweden.

The Ludvika factory, which manufactures transformers, high-voltage products, and HVDC systems, will be expanded by more than 30,000 square meters (322,917 square feet). The larger factory will enable large transformer manufacturing to supply key HVDC projects. The new campus in Vasteras will accommodate 1,800 employees, including an R&D center and a production facility for grid automation. Hitachi Energy says it will grow its Swedish workforce by 2,000 people.

Read more: Hitachi Energy invests $1.5B to make more transformers for grid upgrades

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