Town of Genesee-based
Generac has seen a 20% increase in shipments of its home standby generators in the third quarter due to two major hurricanes striking portions of the southern United States.
Generac reported a 10% increase in net sales for the third quarter on Thursday, with residential product sales seeing a 28% increase to $723 million.
"The vulnerability of our nation’s electrical grid has never been more evident with the U.S. experiencing the highest level of power outage hours through the first nine months of the year since we began tracking outage data in 2010," said
Aaron Jagdfeld, president and CEO of Generac, during the company's third quarter earnings call. "In addition to more volatile weather, the rapid adoption of renewable, intermittent power generation sources and accelerating demand for electricity will likely lead to additional stresses on our aging grid. The elevated outage activity and growing grid related supply-demand imbalances are expected to drive both continued near-term demand as well as long-term awareness of the growing need for backup power products.”
Generac expects to ship approximately $200 million worth of home standby and portable generators in 2024 due to heightened demand for the products in the second half of the year. That demand stems from the recent hurricanes Helene and Milton.
The company is ramping up its home standby production rates by adding new workers at its Whitewater, Wisconsin and Trenton, South Carolina plants.
In 2021, Generac
opened its Trenton facility and doubled production capacity for home standby generators.
“We actually started ramping (up production) after (Hurricane) Beryl in early July. We got the benefit of that because we got ahead of things a little bit,” said Jagdfeld.
Generac is also bolstering its network of dealers to deal with the heightened demand for its products.
The company ended the third quarter with 9,100 dealers, an increase of 400 from the prior year, with notable growth in Texas. Generac anticipates dealer number to continue increasing in the southeastern portion of the country, which has been burdened most by severe weather.
Due to higher than expected power outages activity, driven mostly by hurricanes and Helene and Milton, Generac has increased its sales guidance for the year.
The company now expects full-year 2024 net sales growth between 5% and 9% as compared to the prior year, an increase from the previous outlook of 4 to 8%.
“What you’re going to see in quarter four, based on our guidance update, is really based on what we’re able to get out of our factories,” said Jagdfeld. “It’s a combination of supply chain and our factories. From a historical perspective, we’ve added a lot of capacity.”
