LONDON, ONTARIO — Hitachi Energy announced plans Friday, October 16, for a roughly $479-million transformer insulation factory in London, linking Ontario manufacturing with growing electricity-grid demand.

The company expects the 21,000-square-metre facility to be completed in 2028 and create more than 100 permanent skilled jobs. Those are project forecasts, not a count of jobs already filled or evidence that the plant is operating.

Public support and the project total

Ottawa announced $30 million in federal support: $20 million through the Strategic Response Fund and $10 million through the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation program. Hitachi's announcement also identifies up to $20 million from Ontario's Invest Ontario Fund.

The federal release values the overall project at $478.8 million; the company rounds that figure to $479 million. The government contributions support that project rather than representing a separate factory.

A new use for Canadian wood fibre

The facility is intended to make electrical-grade pressboard and laminated insulation materials used in transformers. The company describes it as Canada's first pressboard manufacturing line and its first in the Americas.

The federal government says the project would convert wood fibre into up to 20,000 tonnes of these materials annually, supplying transformer operations in Varennes, Quebec, and other manufacturers. It connects the investment with demand from grid modernization, electrification and data centres.

The announcement is about industrial supply capacity. It does not establish when individual electricity projects will be completed or promise a particular reduction in household power bills.

Sources: Hitachi Energy, October 16 at 8:30 a.m. ET; Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, October 16; The Canadian Press via CHCH, updated 9:13 a.m..

Lead image: proposed London Transformer Insulation Factory rendering supplied by Hitachi Energy with its October 16 news release, via PR Newswire. Resized and converted to WebP. Architectural visualization, not a photograph of a completed factory.