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One of the greatest things about the NECA Show each year is the opportunity it offers to take the temperature of new product R&D and developing market opportunities in the electrical construction industry. Here are the top three things we learned at NECA 2024 in San Diego.
#1. The search for talent is the top concern in the electrical construction market.
Much of the talk on the NECA 2024 show floor and content in educational sessions centered on two of the evergreen challenges in the electrical construction market: finding qualified electricians and attracting young talent. With dozens of mega-projects underway or on the drawing boards, the need for workers is increasing dramatically. In addition to steady demand for electricians to service commercial, industrial and residential projects of “normal” size, electrical contractors are now competing with mega-projects that required dozens and at times hundreds of electricians.
There are an amazing number of these projects underway, on the drawing boards and completed. In the NECA 2024 seminar, “How Battery Plants and EV Charging Stations are Changing the Landscape for Electrical Contractors,” Roy Cohen, founder of the Cohen Seglias law firm, Philadelphia, PA, and the session’s moderator, said there were 73 semiconductor plants underway or in the design phase; $59 billion in data center construction planned or underway in addition to the 2,850 now operational; and 30 battery plants underway or planned.
EV charging centers are also expected to see explosive growth, and according to data Cohen shared, and he said 28 million EV charging ports will be needed by 2030.
I was flabbergasted with how many electricians these megaprojects can require. Joe Kellams from United Electric Co., Louisville, KY, who was also on the contractor panel in that seminar, said he has had to hire and maintain a workforce on the job of up to 940 electricians Ford’s Blue Oval plant in Kentucky.
#2. Electrical manufacturers continue to invest in new ways to help electrical contractors install products faster, safer and more profitably.
Many of the new products on show floor were developed with this worker shortage in mind and offered electrical contractors new options to do more with less and maximize productivity on job-sites with slimmer field staffs. Some of the products that caught my eye on the show floor included:
• Keystone LED retrofit fixtures with multiple lens options included
• Greenlee’s Micro Crimper with various die options, including a cutter
• Arlington furred boxes for shallow-depth situations
• Southwire’s temporary power cart and a broad variety of products beyond its primary wire and cable that it acquired in its 2021 Topaz acquisition, including outdoor lighting, boxes and cable ties.
• Schneider Electric’s load center with inverter and battery pack options for EV chargers and PV panels. They are now available in California and Puerto Rico, but not yet nationally.
#3. Several key markets are expected to fuel much of the anticipated market growth over the next few years for the electrical construction industry.
We have all heard about the opportunities in data centers, semiconductor plants, EV plants and utility grid modernization. But electrical manufacturers are investing in other end-niches for growth. For example, on Day #1 of NECA, Richard Stinson, CEO, and several other Southwire executives, offered a gathering of journalists and online video bloggers insight into how they are hiring experts in the markets mentioned above, as well as mass transit, airports, factory automation, commercial construction, renewables 5G and eventually 6G networks.
All in all, NECA 2024 was a solid event. Show floor traffic seemed a little lighter than in Philadelphia last year, but that’s probably due at least in part to the fact that San Diego is a smaller market with an estimated 11,982 electrical contractor employees (Electrical Marketing estimates), compared to the Philadelphia metro’s estimated 16,653 contractor employees. San Diego events can draw from the massive Los Angeles and Riverside County, CA, markets, but they are a two-hour drive to the north (traffic permitting).
Based on its central location in Chicago and that metro’s estimated 24,596 electrical contractor employees within an easy drive of the McCormick Place convention hall, NECA 2025 (Sept. 12-15 ), should be a bigger event.