After China, Mexico and Malaysia, JST Power Equipment continues its expansion with a new US factory in Virginia
Over the past 30 years, world-class electrical power solutions provider JST Power Equipment (JST) has evolved into a true innovator in the electrical industry. Throughout its history, and particularly in recent years, the company has made significant investments in its technology, facilities and people. Matthew Polk, Executive Vice President, explains how these investments are empowering the company to engineer the industry’s best solutions while delivering greater value to its customers.
“Starting life as a cast resin transformer manufacturer in 1993, JST grew steadily over the years. In 1997, we opened our first sales office in New Jersey, establishing a US presence that we have maintained ever since. We opened our fourth factory in 2009 and added gas-insulated switchgear and VPI transformers that same year. Around 2019, we decided to grow internationally, opening our first factory in Nogales, Mexico, focused on cast resin transformers. We later expanded it to include VPI transformers and skid solutions. Also in 2019, we purchased our factory in Lake Mary, Florida, just outside Orlando, which we opened for air-insulated switchgear production in 2021,” he begins. Since then, JST has been on an exceptional growth trajectory, opening its fifth factory in Wuhan, China in 2021, a factory in Malaysia in 2025, and this year, its Wytheville, Virginia facility. That expansion has been both deliberate and far-reaching, as the company has been focused on strengthening its global footprint to serve a wider customer base.”
The move into Malaysia was driven by a combination of factors, including customers seeking sourcing from multiple locations, a desire for manufacturing outside of China, and the country’s significant logistical ad-vantages. Malaysia offers a competitive cost base alongside excellent shipping connectivity to Europe, North America, South America and the Asia-Pacific region, making it a strategically well-placed addition to JST’s network.
Similarly, the opening of the Wytheville facility was customer-driven and comes as part of an internal pro-gram built around manufacturing close to where customers are based. “This gives our customers, whether they are based in Europe, the US or Asia, the ability to buy locally, especially when demanded by local requirements. It also allows us to offer local factory acceptance testing and support for their products. Our official grand opening is on the 19th of May and will include a large customer event with dignitaries from both the Virginia State and local governments in attendance, which is pretty exciting for us,” Matthew adds.
JST’s expanding global footprint is closely aligned with the rapid evolution of its customer base. The company serves a broad range of critical end markets, including utilities, data centers, renewable energy developers, battery energy storage providers, and large industrial customers, all of which are experiencing unprecedented demand for reliable, high-performance power infrastructure. As electrification accelerates across economies and grid reliability becomes increasingly vital, JST’s ability to support complex, large-scale projects has positioned it as a trusted partner to customers navigating this transformation.
Through this expanded footprint, JST manufactures a broad and diverse portfolio of products. These include cast resin and VPI dry-type transformers, produced across four factories; pad-mounted transformers manufactured in Yangzhou, Malaysia and soon in the Wytheville facility; and power transformers up to ap-proximately 150 MVA at the Wuhan factory. The company also produces gas-insulated switchgear from five-to-72 kV across its Shanghai, Malaysia and Lake Mary factories, air-insulated switchgear in Lake Mary and Yangzhou, and outdoor substation circuit breakers at Lake Mary. Additionally, JST has a growing presence in battery energy storage, having already delivered over three gigawatts of battery energy storage systems.
Energy transition
Beyond operational growth, JST plays an increasingly important role in enabling the global energy transition. Its transformers, switchgear, and battery energy storage solutions support the integration of renewable generation, strengthen grid stability, and provide the resilience needed to manage more dynamic and decentralized power networks. As utilities and private operators modernize infrastructure to meet decarbonization and reliability targets, JST’s technologies are helping customers deliver cleaner, more resilient energy systems at scale.
Despite the energy-intensive nature of its operations, JST is wholeheartedly committed to sustainability. “ESG is a huge part of who we are. In fact, over 15 years ago, we started installing solar panels across all our factories, and in the US we tend to buy green energy from providers like Duke Energy. Across all our factories globally, 60 percent of the energy we use is green, with a target of reaching 100 percent by 2030. We have also built an in-house wastewater treatment facility at one of our plants, creating a fully closed, green system for managing effluent. Longer term, our company objective is to make our transformers 100 percent recyclable by the end of 2040, and we are well along the path to achieving that,” Matthew reveals.
Sustainability is not the only area where JST leads by example. The company was awarded a Top Work-places 2025 honor, a recognition that reflects a culture that prioritizes employee happiness. JST’s corporate philosophy centers on empowering employees to make decisions and be part of the process, and the results are noticeable. Where many large corporations take months or years to make decisions, the pro-cess only takes hours or days at JST, enabling the company to bring new products to market and make adjustments much faster than others in the industry.
“That agility leads to much happier customers, which works very well for us. We are also deeply focused on our benefits package. For example, we cover 100 percent of our employees’ healthcare costs as part of our policy. Beyond that, we look for various ways to make JST a great place to work. Part of my personal philosophy is making sure that every employee has a best friend at work. When people enjoy what they are doing, they are loyal and hardworking, which leads to longer tenure with us. That engagement translates directly into the quality and consistency that makes a company truly great,” Matthew concludes.
What further differentiates JST in a crowded global market is its ability to combine engineering depth with exceptional speed and flexibility. The company’s decentralized decision-making, proximity-based manufacturing strategy and focus on local compliance allow it to respond faster to customer requirements, shorten project timelines, and deliver tailored solutions without the delays often associated with larger competitors. This agility has become a decisive advantage as customers increasingly prioritize certainty of delivery alongside technical performance.
Over the past three decades, JST has been building something genuinely special: a global manufacturing network that keeps growing, a sustainability commitment that predates most of its competitors and a workplace culture that treats employee happiness as a business strategy rather than an afterthought. With the Wytheville factory opening its doors this May, the next chapter promises to be even more exciting than the last.
