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The energy transition is waiting on transformers

Panels and turbines are cheap and available. The boring steel box that connects them has a four-year lead time.

The energy transition is waiting on transformers
The energy transition is waiting on transformers — XENVORA Photograph: Local power grid and substations, U.S. Department of Agriculture / Rawpixel (CC0) · Licence

Generation costs collapsed. Interconnection did not, and the single most cited reason in the queue data we reviewed is large power transformer availability.

A supply chain nobody invested in

Grain-oriented electrical steel, skilled winding labour and testing capacity are all concentrated in a handful of plants that sized themselves for a market growing 2% a year.

Utilities have started ordering speculatively, which helps them and lengthens the queue for everyone smaller.

You cannot install your way out of a component that takes four years to build.

Karim Fadel
Energy & Climate Tech
Karim Fadel

Karim measures the energy bill behind modern computing, from datacentre cooling to grid-scale storage.

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