Driven by surging international demand for digital infrastructure, China's high-capacity electrical equipment and prefabricated substations are rapidly becoming the new backbone of global energy systems in the age of AI.
In the scorching deserts of Oman, a Chinese-built 400-kilovolt power station has recently been successfully energized. The facility arrived across the ocean as 24 neatly packed modular components, all designed, manufactured and pre-tested thousands of miles away in China. What traditionally required years of grueling civil engineering and on-site commissioning was accomplished in a matter of weeks through the modular approach.
"The Oman project is our highest-voltage and most integrated prefabricated substation overseas to date. A traditional station takes a year and a half to two years to be built. But from receiving the order, manufacturing, shipping, on-site assembly, to final power transmission, we did it all in less than six months," said Ji Guanghui, vice president of Qingdao TGOOD Electric Co., Ltd.
The breathtaking speed is only half the story. Behind a 30-percent increase in project deliveries lies a clever dual-track strategy.
On one hand, the rapid development of the international energy market, alongside the explosion in data and computing center construction, has caused demand for transformers and prefabricated substations to skyrocket. On the other hand, by proactively building regional standards and securing international recognition, the company has streamlined regulatory compliance and strengthened its competitive advantage from the design stage.
"With traditional methods, the cycle for our entire set of products was very long, taking about a year or two. But now, by aligning standards and handling differences through supplementary items, we can compress the timeline to less than three months and save about ten million yuan in costs every year," said Xu Guochuan, general assistant of Qingdao TGOOD Electric's international base.
This high-end manufacturing wave is translating into big numbers back home. In the first half of this year, Shandong Province saw its electrical equipment exports hit 26.7 billion yuan (about 3.95 billion U.S. dollars), a 9.3 percent increase year-on-year, with substation and transformer products alone exceeding seven billion yuan.
"Our products are mainly exported to countries and regions like the European Union, the Middle East, Africa and the Republic of Korea, with exports to the EU and Africa maintaining a relatively fast growth momentum. Looking at the products themselves, high-voltage, large-capacity power transmission equipment and prefabricated substations are showing a strong growth momentum, becoming a brand-new engine for foreign trade," said Liu Shuxia, head of the Enterprise Credit Management Section of Qingdao Dagang Customs.
As the world races to power the digital age, these plug-and-play energy solutions are fundamentally reshaping the speed, scale and methodology of global power system deployment.
China's modular power stations reshaping global infrastructure in age of AI
