Eaton Corp. executives are adding $340 million to the transformer investment boom with a plan to convert a South Carolina factory that will employ 700 people after it opens in 2027.
Cleveland-based Eaton plans to make three-phase transformers at its plant in Jonesville, east of Greenville, and is receiving local, state and federal incentives for the project. The company already makes three-phase transformers at two Wisconsin factories and also manufactures single-phase, pole-mount and pad-mount transformers in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Executives 18 months ago said they were spending more than $500 million to expand the capacity of those operations as they address the shortage of transformers in the United States and seek to catch up to strong demand for electrical equipment from utilities, data centers and other customers. In all, Easton has spent more than $1 billion on expansion projects over the past two-plus years.
“Electrical power demand is increasing dramatically and our solutions are at the heart of energy systems everywhere,” said Mike Yelton, president of the Americas in Eaton’s Electrical Sector group. “We’re grateful for the strong collaboration and support in South Carolina, where we have a long history of manufacturing and innovation.”
The Jonesville investment by Eaton is the latest in a series of moves by manufacturers looking to feed the appetite for equipment: Analysts at Wood Mackenzie last fall wrote that the U.S. market accounted for about half of the roughly $7 billion in announced investments made companies globally in 2023 and 2024. Researchers Xizhou Zhou and Devin Thomas said they had tracked at least 50 new factories in the works by 25 manufacturers.
Among them are:
• Electric Research Manufacturing Cooperative Inc., which is adding 400 jobs through a three-phase project in West Tennessee
• Newly former Voltaris Power LLC, formed by a New York private equity firm to bring together Pioneer Custom Electrical Products and Jefferson Electric
• TMC Transformers USA Inc., which is building a factory in Waynesville, Georgia, that will employ about 110 people
• Hitachi Energy, which is investing $70 million in a distribution transformer factory in Reynosa, Mexico, and spending $25 million to grow its South Boston, Virginia, transformer plant.
• Steel maker Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., which will invest $100 million and use a $50 million forgivable loan from the state of West Virginia to convert part of an idled mill into a distribution transformer factory.
Those companies and others are looking to maintain or grow their share of a market that is expected to more than double over the next decade. That forecast and today’s shortages—lead times are often more than two years for larger equipment, according to Wood Mackenzie research—have pushed equipment prices up substantially.
