Engineering News-Record’s power, water and telecommunications rankings affirm company’s status in infrastructure development, innovation
The Engineering News-Record’s (ENR) latest “Top 500 Design Firms” Sourcebook again ranks global critical infrastructure solutions provider Black & Veatch among the world’s leaders in power, water and telecommunications as decarbonization, sustainability, resilience and other megatrends propel the company’s growth.
Basing its rankings on the company’s operational revenue, the Top 500 Design Firms Sourcebook lists Black & Veatch’s power business again at No. 3. Black & Veatch remains at No. 8 in water and is tenth in telecommunications.
“With decarbonization, electrification, clean water and cybersecurity among the world-changing megatrends impacting our clients, we’re deeply committed and uniquely positioned to deliver the disruptive innovations that these exciting, evolving times demand,” Black & Veatch’s Chairman and CEO Mario Azar said.
“We’ve been solving the world’s infrastructure challenges for more than a century,” Azar added. “And we’ll continue to leverage that deep, trusted expertise and disruptive technology for our diverse client base, ranging from Fortune 1000 companies to utilities, developers and local, state and national governments.”
In 2023, the company expanded its broad portfolio of services with record numbers of construction hours completed (24.5 million, up nearly 8 million from the previous year), and increased its diverse employee-owners workforce by 17 percent (12,494 as of Jan. 1, 2024, up from 10,691 the previous year) to meet historical levels of project backlog and growth across its global regions. Black & Veatch continues to drive innovation across critical infrastructure markets, as reflected in these projects announced or having achieved significant milestones in 2023:
Global Hydrogen Council member Black & Veatch is the owner’s engineer for the Intermountain Power Agency’s effort to retire its original coal-fueled facility in Utah and replace it with an 840-megawatt natural gas-fueled combined cycle power plant. The project is among the earliest installations of combustion turbine technology designed to use a high percentage of green hydrogen. Black & Veatch also is the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for what will become the world’s biggest industrial green hydrogen production and storage hub, adjacent to the IPA power plant.
As a global leader in renewable energy infrastructure, Black & Veatch served a port-marshalling role and developed a unique, customized environment, health and safety (HSE) program for the Vineyard Wind off of Massachusetts’ coast – the first commercial-scale offshore wind project in the United States.
Serving in a civil and structural engineering capacity while helping lead the design, Black & Veatch played a critical role in expanding the Johnson County (Kansas) Tomahawk Creek wastewater treatment facility. In November 2023, the $340-million project was named the Midwest’s best in the water and environment category by the Engineering News-Record.
In California, the Black & Veatch-designed Orange County Water District Groundwater Replenishment System’s final expansion was dedicated in 2023. The GWRS produces high-quality recycled water used to recharge the Orange County Groundwater Basin, the primary potable water supply for more than 2.5 million people. The project won a Water Environment Federation “project excellence award.”
At year-end 2023, Black & Veatch had 3.3 gigawatts DC of solar generation in construction or commissioning, including utility-scale solar projects Crown and Sol in central Texas’ Falls County for BAES Infrastructure, a diversified energy company focusing on energy transition projects.
As part of its industry leading position in liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure solutions, Black & Veatch – with Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) of South Korea – last year was awarded a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract for the Ksi Lisims LNG nearshore floating production facility in northwest Canada. The project represents the next generation of LNG export design, re-inventing the industry for environmentally sensitive and greenhouse-gas constrained development situations. The project is being developed jointly by Western LNG, the Nisga’a Nation and Rockies LNG.
Through the Joint Electric Scaling Initiative (JETSI), Black & Veatch in 2023 announced the design-build completion of high-power chargers in South El Monte, California, for Schneider National Inc., a premier multimodal provider of transportation, intermodal and logistics services with one of country’s largest zero-emission fleets. That site allows up to 32 battery-electric trucks to charge simultaneously and deliver an 80 percent charge within 90 minutes.
About Black & Veatch Black & Veatch is a 100-percent employee-owned global 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 around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media.
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