WEG has just announced the construction of a new factory in Santo Tirso, Portugal. The company intends to invest 23,5 million euros to build 22,680 m² of manufacturing facilities on the same area where WEG already has a 16,300 m² low voltage electric motors factory.

The main goal with this new facility (STI2) is to expand the production of large Electric Motors and of MV/HV drives in addition to transfer our factory located in Maia to Santo Tirso, centralizing all operations in a single manufacturing site (MV/HV Electric Motors, LV Electrical Panels, MV/HV Drives and all Service operations). This will be better and simpler for our customers and more productive and efficient for our business.

The transfer will be initiated during 2023 and will occur gradually until 1Q 2024. Production will never stop during this transfer period, and we expect to be running at full-speed by the end of the 2Q 2024.

“We are not only making investments to increase production capacity, but also improving our operations in Portugal. In addition to moving the production of medium and high voltage, flameproof motors, electrical panels, automation solutions and service operations to Santo Tirso, we are also planning to increase the electric motors range for larger sizes in the country”, says Alberto Kuba, Managing Director of WEG Motors – Industrial Business Unit. As stated by Alberto, this investment represents a very important step for WEG’s Motion Drives business expansion (Medium and High Voltage electric motors and drives, and services) in the European and North of Africa markets and Flameproof Motors globally (worldwide).

As a way of celebrating this investment the first stone laying ceremony for our brand-new factory took place on June 3rd 2022. The ceremony was chaired by WEG Industrial Motors Executive Officer Alberto Kuba with the participation of our partners Garcia, Garcia Lda., the company responsible for the building construction. A Time Capsule event also took place with corporate information that could be found by future generations.

WEG established 20 years ago (May, 13th 2002) in Maia - Portugal with a covered area of 12,652 m² through the acquisition of a local motor manufacturer with a heritage tracing back over 100 years. Back in 2015 WEG decided to locate the future industrial park in Santo Tirso (24km away from Maia and 35km from Porto city center) on a “green field” with a total area of approx. 100,000 m².

In 2017 we commenced operations at the first factory in Santo Tirso (STI1) with a covered area of 18,238 m² dedicated to the production of low voltage electric motors (this activity was previously in Maia), starting with 150 people. Currently WEG is operating with over 300 people at STI1.

This new facility in Santo Tirso (STI2) will start operations with over 450 people and it is still expected a growth of 100 new people on the coming years. Currently WEG Portugal employs in total over 750 people.