Generac Data Center Backlog Hits $4.5B as Sussex Line Starts
Generac said on its Oct. 28 earnings call that initial production began at its Sussex, Wisconsin plant, with $2.4B of Amazon generator deliveries due in 2027 and 2028.
2 min readAI-assisted
Generac's large diesel backup generator for data centers, as shown on the company's data-center page. It is a product image, not the Sussex plant.
Image: Generac
Source · Press image from the Generac website, used for news reporting.
Generac Holdings said on its Oct. 28 third-quarter earnings call that initial production began at the end of the quarter at its new large-megawatt generator plant in Sussex, Wisconsin, as its data-center backlog reached about $4.5 billion.
Generac said on its Oct. 28 call that Sussex production began at the end of Q3 2026, with a ramp in Q4 and tripled capacity targeted around Q3 2027.
Illustration (AI-generated)
CEO Aaron Jagdfeld said build rates at Sussex are expected to ramp significantly in the fourth quarter, and that the first units came off the line earlier than the company had expected. He said Generac is adding a new line there and is working to triple its global production capacity for data-center products, according to a transcript of the call published by The Motley Fool. Quarterly net sales were a record $1.29 billion, up 16%, with commercial and industrial sales of $553 million, up 28%.
The backlog is the number that explains the build-out. Generac said it nearly tripled from 90 days earlier after a long-term supply agreement with Amazon for data-center backup generators, whose initial deliveries total a combined $2.4 billion in 2027 and 2028. Jagdfeld said more than half of the backlog is for 2027 and less than half for 2028.
What the Sussex ramp means for data-center backup power
For data-center operators the constraint is delivery time: Jagdfeld said Generac is quoting lead times of about 45 to 50 weeks. He said orders not in hand by the first quarter of 2027 would be hard to fill within 2027. The company said it expects full-year 2026 data-center revenue of nearly $500 million, up from about $450 million previously, and revenue from data-center products well above $2 billion in 2027.
On capacity, Jagdfeld said Generac has talked about tripling by around the third quarter of 2027, to a level close to $4 billion, against roughly $1.25 billion at the end of this year, as the transcript renders his remarks. He said engine supply is the one component Generac cannot dual-source, because of the limited supply of high-horsepower diesel engines worldwide. The company is also fitting out a packaging facility in Belvidere, Illinois, expected online in early 2027, and has expansion plans in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Amazon deal and an unnamed hyperscaler
Under the Amazon agreement, Jagdfeld said, warrants vest in line with a total of $8 billion of backup-generator purchases over the seven-year term of the deal. He separately described an unnamed hyperscaler that Generac expects to supply with about $700 million of product in 2027. That customer has said its 2028 volume could be as large or larger if Generac executes, but none of it is in the backlog yet, he said.
Backup generator supply is one more item that has to arrive on schedule for new capacity to run. Voltgrid has also covered how Amazon reportedly took $5B of NVIDIA GB300 racks before its sites had power, and the growing onsite gas generation pipeline for data centers.
What is not confirmed yet
Generac gave no megawatt or unit figure for Sussex output, so the tripling is stated in dollars of capacity, not generator ratings. The capacity figures come from remarks on the call, not from a filed schedule, and the 2028 volume from the unnamed hyperscaler is an expectation, not an order. The company did not say how much of the tripling is already installed.
