The Marketing Minute: Why I Wrote 'Marketing in 17 Minutes'
Happy’s Tech Talk #49: Stop! Do You Have a Digital Strategy for the Future?
It’s Only Common Sense: Why Engineering Expertise Has Become the Ultimate Competitive Advantage
Heron Power, an American advanced power electronics manufacturer, announced it has selected Morgan Hill, California as the home of its first large-scale factory. Heron Power will convert a former 286,000 square foot distribution warehouse 30 minutes south of San Jose into an advanced manufacturing facility to produce Heron Link, a 5-megawatt medium voltage power conversion system for large scale energy and datacenter projects.
Heron's first factory is designed to manufacture up to 10,000 Heron Links a year, over 40 gigawatts annually, roughly three-quarters of the total new generating capacity the entire U.S. grid added in 2025, the largest single-year buildout in over two decades. Heron expects to add more than 600 jobs in advanced manufacturing, engineering, and operations roles in California and invest over $100 million in the facility. Site preparation for manufacturing begins immediately, with mass production slated to begin in late 2027.
Over the past two decades, grid-edge technologies like batteries, solar, electric vehicles and compute have advanced dramatically in capability and affordability. However, the hardware on the other side of the wire has not kept pace with this progress. Much of it is decades-old, largely mechanical technology that is increasingly more expensive, hard to source, and ill-matched to the dynamic, bidirectional, growing demand for end-use electrification, new manufacturing, and AI data-centers. Compounding the problem, over 80% of critical grid components such as transformers and inverters is imported.
Heron Factory One is Heron Power's answer to this gap, scaling production of next-generation energy infrastructure in the United States. Heron Link collapses multiple pieces of grid equipment into one compact modular unit, powered by intelligent, software-controlled semiconductors. The result: higher efficiency, increased system uptime, faster deployment, smaller physical footprints and large AI data centers that support rather than destabilize the grid.
"America's grid has to grow faster than it has in decades. We're seeing new demand from AI and EVs, and at the same time new supply from solar and storage," said Drew Baglino, CEO and Founder of Heron Power. "The equipment running the grid hasn't changed in fifty years. Heron Factory One in Morgan Hill is how we fix that. We're manufacturing the leapfrog technology our grid needs, at scale, in America first."
Heron Power evaluated manufacturing locations across multiple states before selecting Morgan Hill. The decision places manufacturing near Heron's engineering headquarters and the broader Bay Area's engineering and manufacturing deep talent pool, accelerating Heron Factory One's ramp to full output, quality, and cost targets. The City of Morgan Hill, PG&E, and state partners worked alongside Heron Power and its real estate advisor JLL over ten months to select the facility, which is supported in part by a $26.4 million California Competes (CalCOMPETES) award, a competitive, merit-based tax credit administered by CA GO-Biz.
"Heron Power is building the technology that will make America's grid faster, more efficient and more reliable, and we're proud to support their expansion in California through CalCompetes," said Dee Dee Myers, Senior Advisor to Governor Newsom and Director of GO-Biz. "Heron Power is the latest company betting on California workers — and we're betting on them right back. Their new facility adds more than 600 good-paying jobs and represents a direct investment in the energy infrastructure of the future, built right here in the Golden State."
