Deep Dive: US Transformer Shortage—End In Sight?

America has been in the midst of a nation-wide transformer shortage, just when the grid has been in dire need of more generation and more transmission. The lack of transformer supplies has put the screws to the utility industry.

“In two short years, everything that we sell on average, [has gone] up by about a third,” Matt Brandrup, the CEO of the Rural Electric Supply Cooperative in Wisconsin said last year. “That's a staggering inflationary increase in two years that in my 25 years in the business, I've never seen, even going back to the housing boom years of 2006-2007...we saw some pretty good inflationary rates on the products that we sell back then. But they were in the 7% to 8% range. So to see an almost a 33% increase in two years is pretty staggering, and quite frankly, tough on our members and non-member utilities to deal with.”

Lead times have stretched as far as four years out, putting inflationary pressure on the price of power. But, with luck, all of this may be about to change.

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