The Efacec Power Transformer facility in Rincon has completed, and is shipping, the largest electrical transformer made in the U.S. in the last 20 years.
The 230 KV 900 MVA Generator Step-Up (GSU) shell transformer weighs 804,000 pounds and is capable of supplying power to a mid-sized city. On Feb. 27, a special rail car that’s 200-feet-long – the size of a 20-story building – departed for one of the largest investor-owned electric utilities in the country. The transformer is the biggest Efacec Group has ever made, and the largest manufactured domestically in the last two decades.
“This is a record-setting achievement in many ways, including the size and quality of the transformer as well as the use of U.S. labor and suppliers,” said Jorge Guerra, Efacec U.S. Operations Chief Operating Officer. “Our U.S. plant remains in a very special, select group of top-level transformer manufacturers worldwide.”
GSU transformers are used to increase the voltage of electricity that generators produce to the appropriate levels for transmission to areas serving consumers.
Efacec’s state-of-the-art plant is the only manufacturing plant in the U.S. to fully design and manufacture transformers using both core and shell technologies. To date, Efacec’s transformer plant in Rincon has successfully manufactured 58 core units and seven shell units with over 8,800 MVA since opening in 2010. Last year it also delivered the first “disassociated phases” transformer; the technology allows shipping in four pieces to overcome transportation restrictions.
Photo courtesy of Efacec
Efacec in Rincon has completed, and is shipping, the largest electrical transformer made in the U.S. in the last 20 years. The 230 KV 900 MVA Generator Step-Up (GSU) shell transformer weighs 804,000 pounds and is capable of supplying power to a mid-sized city.