Originally named LK-NES (SEA) Ltd. after the Danish inventor Lauritz Knudsen, this company was established in 1976 in Singapore to service local and regional power distribution requirements for low-voltage switchgear.

In the late 1980s, the company began a strategic shift towards North-Asia by moving its operations into the People's Republic of China, which even then was becoming the fastest growing energy market in the world.

Subsequent to 1990, a holding company named Lauritz Knudsen Electric Ltd., was incorporated in the Republic of Singapore as the umbrella organisation under which the original manufacturing operations of LK-NES (SEA) Ltd were grouped.

By 1997, in a move to restructure its business Lauritz Kundsen Electric divested from its under-performing low-voltage operations in Malaysia and Singapore and consolidated its medium voltage switchgear manufacturing operations in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province of the PRC under LK-Electric (Zhuhai) Co. Ltd. This enabled for better quality control, economies of scale, and managerial control of the company. At the same time, the group adopted the trade name of LKE Power Distribution Systems, with sub-business divisions such as LKE Medium Voltage Systems, LKE High Tension Systems, LKE Transformer Systems etc.

After the year 2000, LKE Power Distribution Systems established LKE-Electric (Europe) A/S in Odense, Denmark to build compact-substations and switchboards for its Scandinavian clients. LKE-HT Ltd. and LKE-PAS Ltd. were relocated from Shanghai and Manchester, UK, respectively to Zhuhai City. In 2009, LKE Transformer Systems relocated its operations to Zhuhai City as part of the restructuring program. At present LKE Power Distribution Systems has relocated all its manufacturing operations to Zhuhai City in China and maintains one manufacturing operation in Odense, Denmark building pre-fabricated substations and ring-main units.