Trench Opens Charlotte Facility and Reserves High-Voltage Bushing Supply Capacity for Meta

Trench Group opened its first US plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, in July 2026, establishing local production of dry transformer bushings for voltage applications from 25 kV to 765 kV.

The facility represents an investment of more than US$60 million. It has initial production capacity of about 3,500 bushings per year, with potential expansion to as many as 10,000 units annually. The higher figure is a potential future capacity level rather than current output capacity.

Alongside the plant opening, Trench said it had entered into a strategic agreement with Meta to reserve supply capacity for dry bushings serving Meta’s expanding global hyperscale data-center infrastructure. The companies did not disclose supply volumes, commercial terms, delivery dates or the specific data-center sites covered by the agreement.

For data-center developers and power-system operators, the development highlights the role of high-voltage equipment availability in project execution. As grid investment and demand from large loads increase, equipment such as bushings, instrument transformers and reactors could affect grid-interconnection and data-center construction schedules alongside more established constraints around generation and transmission capacity.

Trench also plans to invest about €400 million in expanding its global manufacturing capacity by 2030. This is a forward investment plan, not expenditure already incurred. The Charlotte plant and the Meta supply-capacity agreement point to a shift toward earlier procurement and capacity reservation for specialised grid components supporting hyperscale infrastructure.