The Global Transmission Build-Out in Numbers

We fabricate transmission towers for projects on several continents, and every enquiry starts with the same question from the buyer's side: is the market real, or is it another forecast? Forecasts are cheap. So instead of writing one, we went through published national plans, lender project files and the IEA's investment data, and collected what is actually funded and under construction. Every number below points to a public source.

The bottleneck, in three numbers

Three figures from the IEA's World Energy Investment 2025 report frame every grid project tendering anywhere this year.

• USD 400 billion. Global grid investment in 2025, a record, after 9 percent growth in 2024.
• USD 0.40. What the world spends on grids for every dollar spent on new generation. In 2016 it was USD 0.60. The wires are being outspent by the plants they have to carry.
• 1,650 GW. Solar and wind capacity waiting in connection queues worldwide at the end of 2024, about six times Germany's entire generating fleet.

The same report shows what this does to suppliers: cable procurement now runs two to three years, large power transformers up to four, HVDC systems more than five. Cable prices have nearly doubled since 2018, transformer prices are up about 75 percent. A fabricator's quoted lead time and its ability to hold a price are worth more than they were three years ago.

India: USD 110 billion and a ten-year plan

India approved USD 110 billion of transmission investment for 2024 to 2032, the largest single national commitment in the IEA report. The work is driven by renewables integration and by states that now plan their grids a decade ahead. For tower suppliers, India is simultaneously the biggest opportunity and the most price-competitive tender environment in the world.

Vietnam: nearly 29,000 km of new high-voltage line

Vietnam's revised Power Development Plan 8 (PDP8) is the most concrete plan we found. Between 2025 and 2030 the country targets 12,944 km of new 500 kV line and 15,307 km of new 220 kV line, plus about 208 GVA of new substation capacity at those two voltage classes. The Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade puts total generation and grid investment to 2030 at about USD 136 billion, of which roughly USD 18 billion is transmission.

One detail matters for suppliers. Vietnam Electricity (EVN) estimates the grid needs about USD 3 billion a year but can fund only about 40 percent from its own balance sheet. The rest has to come from external capital and new mechanisms, which means more internationally financed tenders, and more buyers who need a fabricator that can pass a lender's documentation audit.

Bangladesh: a four-project pipeline you can audit

Bangladesh's state transmitter PGCB publishes its project pipeline with scopes, costs and progress percentages. Four projects carry most of the current construction.

The lender files are candid about pace. The Dhaka and Western Zone project had disbursed about 17 percent of its AIIB loan after five years, and one package was re-tendered after a contractor default. Cycles are long and paperwork is heavy. But donor financing pays reliably, and a supplier whose galvanizing, testing and packing documents survive an audit is worth more to an EPC bidder than the cheapest number on a spread of ten quotations.

Africa: Mission 300 and the wires behind it

The World Bank and the African Development Bank have pledged about USD 48 billion through 2030 to connect 300 million people to electricity under Mission 300. By June 2026 the programme had connected over 50 million people across 40 countries, with USD 15 billion committed and USD 4.5 billion mobilised in co-financing. Tanzania alone added 7.5 million connections, Ethiopia 4.6 million, Nigeria 4.5 million.

Much of that connection depends on new wire. The same institutions approved a USD 1.6 billion West Africa Regional Electricity Market Program built on the Ghana to Cote d'Ivoire interconnector and a Mauritania transmission corridor. Grid expansion at this scale is tower demand, spread across dozens of small-to-mid-size tenders rather than one flagship project.

The rest of the map, briefly

• Indonesia. The IEA estimates about 58 GW of inter-island subsea transmission capacity by 2050, led by 25 GW between Sumatra and Java, to move power from the islands where the sun and wind are to the island where the demand is.
• Chile. The country announced its longest transmission line to date, to connect remote renewables by 2029.
• China. One fifth of global grid investment, growing 10 percent a year, though mostly served by domestic mills.

What this means if you are buying or supplying towers

Read the plans together and the pattern is clear. The 132 to 230 kV classes carry most of the kilometres in South Asia and Africa. The 400 and 500 kV backbone is new business in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Chile. Financing increasingly comes from lenders who audit documents as hard as prices. And the global component squeeze means a realistic delivery schedule is now a tender criterion, not a detail.

If you are preparing a bid against any of these pipelines, send us the tower schedule. We fabricate 10 kV to 500 kV, we hold quoted prices through long procurement cycles, and our export documents are built for lender inspections. Our transmission towers page shows the range and the specification table.