Residents of Bay of Quinte may have seen a tanker driving around the region branded with the Soltex logo. Or perhaps they’ve seen it sitting in front of the Soltex facility on Dussek Street in Belleville. At this facility, electrical insulating liquids are being manufactured and prepared for distribution. These include transformer oils and dielectric fluids for underground transmission lines. Soltex is one of very few suppliers of this product!
Dielectric liquid is vital for the smooth running of electric transformers – items such as the green boxes that sit in subdivisions. These little transformers make sure that the high voltage electricity coming from the transmission lines becomes the lower voltage electricity needed for a house. So next time you switch on the light on a dark winter morning and make a pot of coffee, you can thank Soltex and the dielectric liquid that insulates the key components of your electricity source.
Living and Working in Bay of Quinte
Soltex is a Canadian-operated chemical manufacturer and distributor. The company began in Houston in 1990 – that’s where the Soltex head office is – and it has been operating in Bay of Quinte for just over ten years.
The company is involved in the community, providing two awards for high schools: a chemistry award and an innovation award. Students who win these awards are, of course, potential future employees! Soltex is interested in hiring locally – the person who runs their lab is a graduate of Loyalist College. Soltex has18 full-time employees, half of which work in the office and the other half out on the shop floor, mixing the chemicals and loading the trucks for distribution.
And what is the result of mixing those chemicals?
Soltex: Contributing to Bay of Quinte for Years to Come
Soltex produces a variety of chemical-based products. For instance, they produce cable gels, which prevent water from entering fibre optic cables. Soltex also acts as a distributor: a product, such as polybutene – used in adhesives and stretch wrap – will come to them in large amounts, and they will distribute it to where it is needed. Therefore, Soltex’s customers range from companies that are almost next door in Belleville to big utilities in the far reaches of North America.
When we started in 2018, the company had recently signed an agreement for the distribution of transformer oil. Last year, we did not quite 8 million litres of transformer oil. Mike Bonn, General Manager
Transformer oil is a big part of Soltex’s business. Soltex not only sells this product to those who make the small subdivision transformers but also to those who run the large station transformers that are fed by the transmission lines along the 401. In big cities like New York or Toronto, those transmission lines go underground and into pipes, which are filled with dielectric fluid for cooling or insulation.
The electrical grid in Canada and the United States is in a state of upgrade, therefore the electrical insulating liquids side of Soltex’s business is set to grow a lot in the next 5-10 years. Soltex is on track to add a few more staff members to their office and shop floor.
Learn more about how the Quinte Economic Development Commission (QEDC) supports businesses like Soltex in Bay of Quinte.
