The first power module built at Nordic EPOD’s factory in Viana do Castelo left the plant for export on Wednesday, 21 October. The municipality announced the dispatch on its social media channels, and the news was carried the same day by Rádio Alto Minho, O Minho and Alto Minho TV, and by Viana TV on 22 October.

Nordic EPOD is the joint venture between the Oslo-founded data-centre contractor CTS Group and the power-management company Eaton. O Minho puts the investment behind the plant at about €50 million. NorthSouth HQ covered the project in June and the start of production in September. This week’s step is the next one: the factory has finished a unit and shipped it to a customer abroad.

From first production to first dispatch in about two months

The plant, between the parishes of Darque and Vila Nova de Anha on the south bank of the Lima, began production in August, according to Alto Minho TV and Rádio Alto Minho. The first finished unit therefore left roughly two months after the line started. Mayor Luís Nobre congratulated the workforce. “It is good news for the company and for Viana do Castelo,” he said, as quoted by the municipality (NorthSouth HQ translation).

The project has run behind its first timetable. When it was presented in early 2025, the company said the factory would start on 1 February 2026, O Minho reported at the time. Production began about six months later than that. Once the line was running, though, the move from first output to a shipped product was quick.

None of the reports names the destination country, the customer or the size of the unit shipped. The municipality’s statement repeats the plant’s market focus: about 90% of output is for export, aimed “in a first phase” at Europe and the Middle East.

What the plant makes, and at what scale

An EPOD (Electrical Power Optimization Device) is a prefabricated module that receives, transforms, distributes and stabilises electrical power for a data centre. The municipality describes them as large machines, “which are not batteries”, that keep a data centre’s power from being interrupted, and calls the factory the only one of its kind in Portugal. At the 2025 presentation, Francisco Reis, chief executive of the CTS-owned Porto engineering firm BIMMS, said the units reach 17 metres in length and 3.5 metres in width, and that the site would have one line for EPODs and another for electrical switchboards, with two further lines that could be switched on as demand grows.

The figures released this week match those given at the opening. The municipality’s statement says the plant is planned to produce about 450 EPODs a year with annual turnover of €650 million. The site covers 110,000 square metres, of which 21,000 are built and about 12,000 are given over to EPOD production. O Minho adds that orders are secured until June 2027, that operations will expand next year, and that the plant expects to create about 500 jobs. These are company and municipal targets, not reported results. The €650 million figure is the plant’s stated ambition at full output and should not be read as current sales.

Sources: Câmara Municipal de Viana do Castelo statement as reported by Rádio Alto Minho, Alto Minho TV, O Minho and Viana TV (21–22 October 2026).

A Norwegian employer in a changing industrial district

The plant is opening while other employers in Viana’s industrial base are cutting back. In April, the German wind-turbine maker Enercon closed its generator factory in Lanheses and let 68 workers go. The SITE-Norte union told Lusa that about two-thirds of them would be taken on by other employers in the area, Nordic EPOD among them, O Minho reported. In September NorthSouth HQ cited a reported headcount of about 120. None of this week’s reports gives an updated workforce figure, so it is not yet possible to say how far the plant has moved toward its 500-job target.

For CTS, Viana is the manufacturing part of a Portuguese setup that also includes a European headquarters in Lisbon and a majority stake in BIMMS in Porto. For Portuguese suppliers of steelwork, cabling, switchgear, transport and industrial services, a plant that has started shipping 17-metre modules is a buyer they can now judge on real orders.

What to watch

Three things would show whether the first shipment marks the start of steady output. The first is whether Nordic EPOD or the municipality names a destination or customer. The second is the next headcount figure. The third is whether the expansion O Minho reports for next year, and the extra production lines described in 2025, are actually put into use. Orders running to June 2027 give the plant work for roughly the next eight months. Demand for data-centre power equipment follows hyperscale capital spending, so the order book after mid-2027 is the figure that will matter.

Sources: Rádio Alto Minho (21 October 2026); O Minho (21 October 2026); Alto Minho TV (21 October 2026); Viana TV (22 October 2026); O Minho/Lusa (29 April 2026); O Minho (16 October 2025); NorthSouth HQ reporting (June and September 2026).