Urban Strandberg, Vice President – Sales & Marketing, Hitachi Energy

Invest: spoke with Urban Strandberg, vice president of sales and marketing for the Grid Integration business at Hitachi Energy, about the company’s new Power Electronics Center of Competence in Cary, rising power demand, grid resilience, and the talent needed to support the energy transition. “We are primarily investing in brain power, and in the opportunity to test these systems locally,” Strandberg said.

What strategic factors led Hitachi Energy to select the Research Triangle for its new Power Electronics Center of Competence?

Hitachi Energy has been in the Research Triangle area for a long time. We have been at NC State’s Centennial Campus since the early 1990s. That is also where we have had our power systems and grid integration business. As we saw the need to grow our local expertise and local presence, we decided to expand further in the Raleigh area.

The new location is close to where we are today. It is also close to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, which makes it convenient for customers to come and witness what we are doing in the new facility.

How is the rapid rise in electricity demand from AI data centers and electrification changing the way you approach grid stability and power quality solutions?

AI data centers are causing disruption to the system. They are becoming larger. We are not only talking about 50- or 100-megawatt anymore, but gigawatt-scale AI data centers.

That creates a need to strengthen the network for voltage regulation across the grid through technologies such as static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) technology, which regulates voltage on the transmission system.

AI data centers also have rapid load fluctuations. Enhanced STATCOM technology can compensate for that as well. We are seeing a pretty big demand in the market to support AI and data center loads coming online.

How do you see grid infrastructure evolving to meet that growing demand at this scale?

We are seeing the strengthening of the transmission network, with more 765-kilovolt (kV) networks coming online in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT), PJM Interconnection (PJM), and different regions of the country.

We are also seeing more discussion around generation. There is more talk about adding nuclear to the country, and more talk about small modular reactors. Given the current demand, we are also seeing more behind-the-meter applications. Developers and customers are building these energy hubs quickly and then trying to attract hyperscalers as customers. 

What role does cybersecurity play in energy infrastructure, and how is that influencing how solutions are designed and deployed?

Everything today involves electronics and advanced control systems, whether that is a large high-voltage direct current (HVDC) facility or another application. These control systems are managing the network and the system. With that, there are potential cyber risks. Cybersecurity is an extremely important part of making sure that what we install is secure.

That is one part of what we are doing at the new Power Electronics Center of Competence. One part is STATCOM design and testing, and the other is that we have moved our cybersecurity center from the NC State campus to the new facility in Cary.

How important is workforce development to supporting this expansion?

For the Power Electronics Center of Competence, we have people doing system design, meaning they design the system and specify transformers and all the different pieces.

It requires many different engineering backgrounds. With the increasing number of projects, we also need project managers, assistants, and other support roles.

Eventually, these installations will be put in place somewhere in the country. That means we will need site and installation managers, commissioning engineers, and additional support roles. 

Where are you seeing the greatest opportunities across utilities, data centers, and industrial users?

Traditionally, our biggest customer segment has been utilities, and utilities are still a large part of our business. But the data center segment has been growing rapidly over the last several years.

We are also seeing a big increase in industry demand. I would not be surprised if there is more balance between the three segments going forward. That does not mean the utility segment is going to be smaller. On the contrary, it is probably going to keep growing, but the other two segments are going to grow even more.

Looking ahead, what are your top priorities for the Cary center, and how do you see it contributing to regional economic growth and U.S. energy infrastructure?

We had the Secretary of Energy visit in April this year, and the facility is already fully operational, conducting the first product demonstration for a customer a few weeks ago. Out of the 150 people we said we were going to add, we have already secured about 100 as part of that preparation. The space is already occupied with control systems to be tested for our U.S. utility customers.

I see big opportunities for bringing customers to the Raleigh area. We have been an engineering facility, so customers could come to our Raleigh offices for project meetings, but we did not really have anything to show them. In the past, customers went to Europe, Sweden, or other places to witness Factory Acceptance Testing, which is a test we conduct to ensure we deliver our solutions according to specifications. Now they can come to Raleigh and Cary.

They have less travel and more opportunities for customer training, as well as training for our own personnel. In the past, when we hired new people, we had to send them to Europe, in most cases, Sweden, to get trained. Now we can train them locally in the environment we have here.

Some customers appreciated going to Sweden and witnessing those tests, but this is a game changer. It is comfortable for U.S. and Canadian customers, since it is easy to travel to and in the same time zone.

It is also difficult to build scale if we hire new people and then send them to another country for weeks or months at a time. We decided that we wanted to do locally what we had been doing partly locally and partly globally. Now we can hire people and train them locally, and that makes a big difference.

How are you investing in U.S. manufacturing and engineering capabilities?

We are expanding our transformer facility in South Boston, Virginia, and adding a new factory there. Customers will fly into Raleigh-Durham to visit our facilities in South Boston and Cary.

It is more tangible for customers. We are manufacturing the panels and control systems here in the United States, and those systems are physically tested here. We are primarily investing in brain power and in the opportunity to test these systems locally.

With millions of dollars of investment, it may not be on the same scale as building a factory, but it is a different kind of investment because it requires highly skilled engineers to do this work.