ENR Rankings Put Black & Veatch at the Heart of Digital Transformation
Strong placements in power, telecommunications and water cement Black & Veatch’s position at the leading edge of utility infrastructure development
At its heart the world’s digital transformation relies on clean energy and the rapid, resilient transmission of data and information. Securing top four finishes in three key Engineering News-Record’s (ENR) rankings puts Black & Veatch at the center of enabling the digital society.
This marks the fifth year in a row that Black & Veatch has ranked #2 in Power in the ENR’s Top 500 Design Firms report. In industries being reshaped by digital transformation Black & Veatch continues to be a strong presence, securing a #3 ranking for Telecommunications and #4 for Water. The company is successfully fulfilling clients’ drive for greater sustainability – be it through more energy-efficient water services, greater use of renewable power generation, or widescale distributed infrastructure deployment to advance power utilities, commercial and industrial customers.
“One of the things that sets us apart is our highly innovative culture that gives us the ability to add value for our clients at every point of the infrastructure life cycle. As digital transformation cuts across traditional boundaries, we are also increasingly able to foster new ways of working by sharing the deep institutional knowledge within our business across new elements of our client base,” said Steve Edwards, CEO of Black & Veatch. “The engineering and construction sectors in which we operate are evolving rapidly. Our continued success in the ENR rankings demonstrates how well we are able to help clients stay ahead of these changes.”
In today’s digital era success requires proven expertise in the design, construction and management of critical infrastructure; underpinned by leading-edge capabilities in data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Utilities, commercial enterprises and governments need partners able to plan and deliver a physical asset base fully augmented with sensors, wireless connectivity and data analytics to create cyber-physical systems which enhance planning, operation and management.
Here are some current examples of the ways in which the Black & Veatch is driving innovation across critical infrastructure markets:
Black & Veatch provided the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services on a new onshore wind facility for Capital Power, a North American power producer. The Cardinal Point Wind Project is a new 150-megawatt (MW) onshore wind facility located in McDonough and Warren Counties, in Illinois.
Black & Veatch was selected by PowerSouth to engineer and manage construction of a combined cycle gas turbine facility that will deliver clean and efficient energy to customers across Alabama and northwest Florida.
A leader in zero-emission vehicle infrastructure, Black & Veatch has pioneered new mobility from the earliest stages. As of early 2020, the company has deployed 1,455 high-power DC Fast Charger posts for 332 Electrify America sites in eight U.S. regions. Black & Veatch’s end-to-end knowledge of transportation, power distribution and integrated infrastructure systems led to a rapid scale to meet Electrify America project timelines.
The Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems migrated to a digital, internet protocol system to ensure their 24/7 critical communications reliability and future-readiness. Black & Veatch designed the upgraded statewide communication system, integrating separate technologies into one cutting-edge system that supports bandwidth-intensive apps like telemedicine, location mapping and sensor-collected field data.
Black & Veatch’s water business is developing one of the world’s first artificial intelligence-enabled water industry digital twins, for Anglian Water in England. What separates the digital twin from a conventional model is that the twin is in constant dialogue with its physical counterpart, enabling Anglian Water to simulate and scenario test options before actioning them in the real world.
Through its Oil & Gas business the company commenced jointly outfitting Golar LNG-owned LNG carrier, Gimi, with Black & Veatch’s patented PRICO® liquefaction technology. Black & Veatch teamed with Keppel Shipyard Limited to convert the Gimi into a floating LNG vessel supporting the development of Phase 1 of BP’s Greater Tortue/Ahmeyim field, located off Mauritania and Senegal.
The company also successfully completed the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning contract to create India’s first east coast LNG terminal. The facility, at Ennore, has a send-out capacity of 5 million metric tons per annum.
Black & Veatch’s Federal business was selected as the Designer of Record Joint Venture Partner on the design-build team for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District’s Next NGA West (N2W) campus. It’s the largest contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the past decade.
Using an analytics platform developed by Black & Veatch, the City of Lawrence, Kansas, can aggregate and visualize large amounts of data from diverse sources including SCADA, LIMS and weather to optimize process performance and better manage energy and chemical use across multiple water and wastewater treatment plants. The platform is AI-enabled, and machine learning is conducted on selected datasets to provide early warning of upcoming issues.
Black & Veatch helped the Board of Public Utilities of Kansas City, Kansas (Kansas BPU) implement an advanced metering system that integrates AMI consumption, SCADA supply data and cell-based logger information in near real-time to create an automated daily water loss report. This integration improved the understanding of leakage in the system and enabled calculation of the actual volume and savings associated with water loss reduction activities.
A large U.S. utility replaced their 30+ year Customer Information and Billing Mainframe System with Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter (C2M), a comprehensive system to support the entire Meter to Cash lifecycle. Black & Veatch Management Consulting deployed their team of experts focused on project management, system functionality and organizational readiness to allow the client to become one of the first utilities to successfully deploy C2M and to successfully deploy the companion Oracle Utilities Mobile Workforce Management (MWM) System. The success of this partnership has positioned the client to continue offering exceptional service to the 1.8 million residents that they serve.
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is an employee-owned engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people in over 100 countries by addressing the resilience and reliability of our world's most important infrastructure assets. Our revenues in 2019 were US$3.7 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.
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