Can U.S. High-Voltage Grid Equipment Supply Keep Pace With 765

From two-year bushing lead times and hyperscaler demand to U.S. manufacturing expansion and the emerging 765-kV build-out, Trench Group CEO Bahadir Basdere explains where high-voltage equipment supply is under the most pressure. High-voltage grid components are becoming a critical constraint as utilities, transmission developers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and hyperscalers compete for equipment needed to support grid expansion and large-load development. Trench Group, a Berlin-headquartered manufacturer of bushings, instrument transformers, coils, and reactors, has been scaling rapidly to meet that demand. Since becoming independent from Siemens Energy in April 2024, Trench Group has doubled annual revenue to more than €1 billion, grown its order backlog to more than €2.1 billion, and committed about €400 million to expand global production capacity through 2030. The company operates 11 factories across eight countries and plans to grow from more than 3,000 employees today to about 4,000 by 2030. North America has emerged as a particularly important market. In July 2026, Trench opened its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, a more than $60 million investment in domestic high-voltage bushing production. The 170,000-square-foot plant is designed to manufacture dry-type transformer bushings from 25 kV through 765 kV. Initial capacity will field about 3,500 units annually, though it has room to expand to as many as 10,000. Trench has also signed a strategic capacity agreement with Meta to supply dry-type bushings for the company’s expanding global hyperscale data center infrastructure. The company is also expanding its “power-quality” portfolio. At CIGRE Paris 2026, Trench unveiled an integrated component-level offering that combines Enerlux capacitors, Trench Austria reactors, and Trench instrument transformers as a co-engineered package from a single supplier. The concept intends to reduce resonance, physical coordination, and commissioning issues that can crop up when the components are engineered and supplied separately. “With the integration of Enerlux, we have made a strategic addition to our portfolio,” Dr. Bahadir Basdere, Trench Group president and CEO, noted in an Aug. 25 release. “Power quality is one of the most strongly growing segments in grid infrastructure, and we are now in a position to offer customers the complete tailor-made component package from a single source.” Dr. Basdere has served as president and CEO of Trench Group since its separation from Siemens Energy in April 2024. Before that, he led Siemens Energy’s global bushings, instrument transformers, and coils business, overseeing a production network of 10 factories across four continents. His earlier Siemens roles included leading the company’s liquid-immersed distribution transformer business and holding manufacturing and quality roles at its Berlin gas turbine plant. POWER asked Basdere about the equipment bottlenecks emerging across high-voltage transmission, how Trench is adding manufacturing capacity, why North America is absorbing roughly half of new orders, and how hyperscale data center development is changing what customers expect from grid-equipment suppliers. The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and house style. POWER: Trench Group’s roots stretch back more than 100 years, spanning key milestones in Germany, Italy, and Canada. What does the company make, and which parts of the power system depend on its products every day? Bahadir Basdere: We design and manufacture bushings, instrument transformers, coils, and reactors that connect, measure, and stabilize the high-voltage transmission infrastructure—our components are present in power grids worldwide. Our company’s founders invented the products we still build today: condenser bushings were first developed in Cologne, Germany, in 1893. Instrument transformers in Savona, Italy, in 1919. And the air-core reactor was invented in a garage in Toronto, Canada, in 1962. Three separate inventions, on three continents, all solving the same challenge that still defines our business today: connecting, measuring, and stabilizing the grid POWER: Can you help our readers understand your global footprint—plants, research and development, and service—and what each region specializes in? Basdere: We operate 11 factories across eight countries on four continents and employ more than 3,000 people, growing toward 4,000 by 2030. Berlin is our headquarters, and we are organized around three business units, each centered on a lead plant: Grid Connection (bushings), led by HSP in Troisdorf, Germany; Grid Measurement (instrument transformers), led by Trench Germany in Bamberg; and Grid Reliability (coils and reactors), led by Trench Austria. North America has been part of our footprint far longer than most people realize—Trench Canada was founded in 1962 by Tony Trench, and we operate two factories there today, producing coils and instrument transformers. Our first HSP bushing factory in the U.S., in Charlotte, North Carolina, has just opened its doors, adding high-voltage dry-type bushing production on U.S. soil for the first time. In Australia, our H Nu business brings optical measurement technology to the portfolio. Research and development (R&D) happens close to production—our factories worldwide each carry out engineering and R&D activities for their product line, rather than being centralized in one location. Commercially, we serve customers—OEMs, utilities, and hyperscalers—through five regional sales hubs. POWER: Since Trench Group became independent from Siemens Energy in April 2024, annual revenue has doubled to more than €1 billion and the order backlog stands at more than €2.1 billion. What operational changes have enabled that scale-up? Basdere: The starting point is the market itself: global electricity demand is set to grow to 33,600 TWh by 2030, and annual grid investment needs to rise by roughly 50% just to keep pace. The world has entered the age of electricity. The electrification of all areas of life, the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, and large-scale grid modernization are creating structural demand that will shape the next decade. This is our market. But market growth alone doesn’t double a company’s business—execution on our side is what turned that tailwind into results. Three things really matter: focus, speed, and execution. Focus: Since the carve-out, we’ve sharpened our focus on high-voltage grid components, closing acquisitions in 2025 and early 2026—H Nu, RPC’s insulator manufacturing assets, and Enerlux. Each added a capability our portfolio was missing rather than diversifying away from it. Speed: As an independent company, we’ve been able to make decisions in weeks that used to take quarters. Our U.S. factory in Charlotte was built and operational in just over 15 months from the investment decision. By 2030, we are dedicating €400 million to expanding our production capacity worldwide. And finally, execution: 30% revenue growth in each of the past two years, accelerating further. Q1–Q3 2026 revenue was up 31% year over year to more than €860 million, and order intake was up 28% to almost €1.5 billion. We’ve also added more than 800 new members to our team since the carve-out—growth you can see on the shop floor, not just on the balance sheet. POWER: What’s your view on the biggest supply-chain risks for grid components over the next 24 months, and how is Trench de-risking? Basdere: We see three risk categories, and they compound. First: capacity, not access, as demand is outpacing the industry’s ability to qualify new manufacturing capacity. Second: That pressure lands on an already narrow base of specialized suppliers, so any single disruption has an outsized effect. Third, and newest: As component tracking and control electronics go networked, that risk becomes digital as well as physical. So, the industry needs to move fast in terms of cybersecurity. Our de-risking strategy has several levers: we qualify a broader base of suppliers for critical components, and we’re deliberate about geographic diversification. We use longer-term agreements with key partners to secure capacity and price stability rather than transacting spot by spot. And we’ve focused on stronger supplier quality controls. No single strategy eliminates risk. The goal is resilience through redundancy and visibility—knowing where every critical dependency sits. And having a credible alternative before you need one. POWER: Why Charlotte, why now, and what does U.S. domestic production change for U.S. customers in terms of lead times, logistics, and service? Basdere: Charlotte is our first U.S. footprint, a $60 million investment for direct access to local demand. It’s a fast-growing metropolitan area that has the largest manufacturing workforce in the Southeast, is close to our biggest customers, and offers a strong business environment. Timing follows the market: the U.S. is undertaking its most significant grid expansion and modernization in generations, including the 765-kV build-out now getting underway. As a result, North America is our fastest-growing region. Domestic production means shorter lead times and shipping times on a focused Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-standard portfolio, closer day-to-day collaboration with customers, and leading-edge test lab capacity on-site. It also gives utility customers Buy America/Build America, Buy America (BABA)-compliant sourcing, which matters directly for access to federal infrastructure funding. POWER: The Charlotte plant can initially produce up to 3,500 bushings per year and can ultimately expand to 10,000. What’s the current run rate, and what milestones must be reached to arrive at full capacity? Basdere: Initial planning was based on 3,500 units. But there is potential for significantly more. Production has started and is ramping up in stages: below 230 kV this year, up to 550 kV next year, and first 765-kV bushings shipping in early 2028. The remaining milestones are workforce onboarding and machine installation, both underway, with full initial capacity expected next year. POWER: Across bushings, instrument transformers, and reactors, where are the longest lead times today, and what are the binding constraints? Basdere: The longest lead times right now are for bushings, driven by a global surge in demand for power transformers. Bushings are a crucial, long-lead component in that build-out, with lead times running up to two years depending on voltage class and specifications. That’s why we’re expanding our own production and signing capacity agreements with major transformer OEMs to align early on demand and reserve production slots. The main supply-side bottleneck is specialty components, particularly insulators. Demand has outpaced available capacity industry-wide, which is exactly why we acquired the insulator manufacturing assets from Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen. Bringing that critical input in-house gives us greater control over our own supply chain and protects delivery commitments to customers. POWER: Roughly 50% of new orders are now destined for North America, and hyperscalers are just one driver. What specifications or service expectations from data center customers differ most from traditional utility purchases, and what does that mean for how you design, build, and deliver? Basdere: The biggest difference is timing. A traditional grid buy runs on long, predictable planning cycles. Hyperscalers are building gigawatt-scale campuses across several continents fast and simultaneously. Grid integration is now the first thing a data center project depends on. And lead times for the equipment that connects power to the building have stretched from months to years, making delivery timing the biggest risk to whether a campus comes online on schedule. Two other factors set these customers apart. Grid-code compliance now spans several jurisdictions at once, growing faster than most operators can hire for. So, they want manufacturer engineering input early—on grid studies, substation design, and compliance. And because net-zero targets are in place, operators increasingly ask for sustainability credentials they can measure. For Trench, this means acting as one partner across the entire grid integration process: standardizing engineering across a customer’s global portfolio, bringing advisory expertise in early, and expanding our own manufacturing so we can reserve capacity ahead of standard lead times. POWER: At CIGRE Paris 2026, Trench Group presented a fully integrated, component-level power-quality solution. What grid problem does this solve that today’s multi-vendor approach can’t? Basdere: As grids absorb more renewable, inverter-based generation, power quality is becoming more dynamic and less forgiving of components that were never designed to work together. When capacitors, reactors, and instrument transformers come from three different suppliers, each meets its own specification. But resonance behavior, physical coordination, and commissioning timeline between them fall into a gap nobody’s contractually responsible for. That is where projects lose time, and where post-energization performance issues can turn into vendors pointing to one another instead of solving the problem. Following our acquisition of Enerlux, we can now offer capacitors, air-core reactors, and instrument transformers as one co-engineered package, from one supplier, under one warranty. Our customers consistently tell us that managing multiple suppliers for power-quality components costs them time and resources and creates unnecessary risk. What we’re solving here is a coordination gap that’s grown alongside more complex, inverter-based grids. —Interview conducted by Sonal Patel, a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine), in August 2026.