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The EU has raised minimum import prices on GOES transformer steel until February 2027, after EU mills' share of their home market fell from 66% to 43%.
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Electrical steel of the kind used in transformer cores.
Illustration (AI-generated)
On 18 September the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, set preliminary safeguard measures on grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES), the specialty steel used in transformer cores. These raise the minimum price for imported steel and for imported transformer cores. They are temporary and expire in February 2027, IEEE Spectrum reports.
The steel is grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES). It is iron mixed with silicon, with its tiny crystals lined up in one direction. That cuts energy loss when alternating current flips back and forth. A transformer, the device that steps power up or down in voltage, usually has a GOES core.
GOES steel is stacked in thin layers to make a transformer core.
VoltGridNews
Source · Original VoltGridNews explanatory diagram based on the cited source
Only two EU companies make GOES: Thyssenkrupp and Stalprodukt. EU use of it rose 32% from 2021 to 2025. Yet European mills' share of the market fell from 66% to 43%, as imports more than doubled. More than half of imports now come from China. Thyssenkrupp has cut output since December 2025, blaming cheap Asian steel.
EU producers' share of the EU GOES market, 2021 vs 2025.
VoltGridNews
Source · Original VoltGridNews diagram; data from cited source
Transformers are already in short supply. Mark Becker-von Bredow of German electrical industry group ZVEI says European mills cannot supply the volumes or the best grades needed. He says imports from Japan and South Korea remain essential.
Diederik Peereboom of T&D Europe, a grid equipment group, expects the safeguards to raise transformer costs in Europe. Both groups warn that makers may build whole transformers outside Europe instead.
The US has one GOES mill, and its steel is less efficient than East Asian grades. US tariffs did not cover finished cores until August 2025. Before that, Asian steel came in through cores made in Canada and Mexico.
The Commission must decide by February 2027 whether to make the measures permanent. Peereboom notes nothing in them asks EU mills to add capacity or make the high-end grades they lack today.
