In the coming years, electrical contractors will transition into “energy contractors” to support the fast-growing green construction market. There has been a revival of interest in the electrical trade as home owners and corporations adopt alternative methods (e.g. solar, wind, etc) to power buildings. What’s driving this? Federal incentives, lower material costs and savings from reduced energy spending.
Each spring, Building Design & Construction (BD+C) editors survey the country’s largest AEC firms in the nonresidential building industry. Companies are ranked across six categories—Architects (50), Architect/Engineers (50), Engineers (50), Engineer/Architects (50), Contractors (80), and Construction Managers (20)—based on the volume of commercial, institutional, industrial, and multifamily residential building work completed in 2008. This year, in addition to publishing a list of the top 200 building team LEED APs, they have also published a ranking of the nation’s 150 largest green design firms and a list of 75 of the largest green contractors. The design firms are ranked on billings for work performed in-house. Contractors and construction managers are ranked on the value of construction put in place. For multi-year jobs, only work from the survey year applies.