Although it’s been a tough year for the construction market, EC&M’s editors found a surprising number of high-profile construction projects across the United States that either recently broke ground or will be underway soon. When you consider that the electrical portion of the typical construction project is roughly 10% of the total project cost, you can see why they will provide electrical contractors and others in the electrical construction community with plenty of revenue potential in 2021.
The Table highlights more than 40 projects. Many of these are in niches of the construction market that have been quite active over the past few years, including data centers, airports, light-rail, mixed-use urban redevelopment projects, and warehouses/distribution centers. And while the construction of single-family housing developments individually doesn’t represent the same type of dollars as these trophy jobs, all construction economists expect single-family housing to be one of the fastest-growing market segments for 2021. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Washington, D.C., forecasts single-family housing starts to increase 4.7% to 1.03 million starts this year, with the hottest local markets in the Sunbelt and Intermountain region.
The biggest trophy jobs now under construction include the $4-billion mixed-use National Landing project to be constructed near Amazon’s HQ2 headquarters across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., and the $1-billion Potomac Yard project to be built near Reagan National Airport in northern Virginia. The Potomac Yard project will include a satellite campus for Virginia Tech University.
In recent years, the Big Apple has also been a hotbed of construction activity, with the New York’s Hudson Yards mega-project; LaGuardia Airport renovation and plans for a major expansion at JFK Airport; redevelopment of Penn Station; and the crazy amount of luxury condo construction. While Manhattan’s construction scene has cooled off, the recent start of the $1.2-billion One Madison office tower and the upcoming $392-million renovation of the Long Island Railroad concourse at Penn Station will also represent major electrical construction potential.
A little further down the road, we also expect to see big-time construction opportunities for electrical professionals in three different areas:
- Utility-scale and local energy storage projects.
- On-shore support facilities for upcoming offshore wind farms along the East Coast.
- Large-scale installation of electric vehicles chargers.
Utility-scale storage. Electric utilities are starting to use massive battery banks to store the power produced by solar and wind farms, and over the next few years at least 10 of these storage projects rated at more than 150MW will break ground. Tesla is getting very involved in this area.
Support facilities for offshore wind farms. While large European firms with a specialty in offshore wind will handle most of the construction and installation of the offshore wind turbines, these installations will require large onshore staging areas at ports to handle the logistics of storing and transporting materials to these wind farms.
Electric vehicle charging systems. As more auto manufacturers begin producing electric vehicles over the next decade, the installation of EV chargers in residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional applications will require massive amounts of electrical construction materials. Electrical contractors stand to profit from this trend in a big way (read related article on “EV Installations Offer New Revenue Streams for Electrical Contractors”). According to a research report published by Allied Market Research, the global electric vehicle charger market generated $3.8 billion in 2019, and is estimated to reach $25.5 billion by 2027 ― a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) 26.8% from 2020 through 2027.
Each local market will enjoy new revenues from the construction niches discussed in this article, so it’s important for electrical contractors and other electrical professionals to be in touch with the design and architectural firms as early in the design and build process as possible to identify potential new business opportunities.
