Archkey’s Miller said there are now 400 data centers under construction in the United States, and that owners are pressuring electrical contractors to complete them in 12 to 18 months instead of the two-plus years they would take in the past.
In addition to the sheer number of data centers being built is the extraordinary size of today’s projects, with many data center campuses regularly topping 1GW. Quite often these projects are being built in rural areas far from distributors’ branches, and Graybar’s Mike Carroll and Rich King says this logistical challenge required close coordination with electrical contractors to ensure that products are staged and delivered at precisely the right time in a project’s timeline.
If orders arrive too early at either a distributor’s nearest warehouse or the job site, there may not be enough room for them. It’s a big issue because of the size of many of these data centers. King gave the example of one project requiring a total of 20 truckloads of cable tray, which would have overwhelmed the job site and the nearest Graybar warehouse if it hadn’t been staged properly. The panel said another big issue is the scarcity of certain products. The long lead times associated with switchgear are well-known, but Miller, King and Carroll said the availability of wire and cable and circuit breakers has also been an issue.
Archkey’s Miller said the three things he expects from electrical distributors on data centers projects is transparency, accountability and being present. He know data centers are complex projects that don’t always progress as expected, but says Archkey expects electrical distributors to eliminate as many potential surprises upfront as possible. He also expects distributors to be available through all phases of a project, from pre-planning until project completion.
Archkey and Graybar have worked on data center projects for many years, but they are always coming up with new methods of streamlining the workflow. Preassemblies are an increasing important part of the project because of workforce shortages, a trend echoed by Atkore’s Steve Waller in another NECA trade show seminar.
Miller, King, and Carroll say another major value-added service Graybar provides is having their own employees helping out with materials management processes on job sites so electrical contractors can keep their electricians away from nontechnical tasks and focused on their primary installation responsibilities. Other value-added services include staging, kitting, tagging products with RF code for tracking and flow management and shrink-wrapping pallets by different colors for easy identification.
The executives do not see any slowdown in the demand for data centers and in fact see new demand starting up for “edge data centers” being built on or near end-user locations, instead of the data centers being built on remote centralized campuses by hyperscalers.
“It’s coming faster than we think,” said King. He also believes the current wave of data center campuses being built by hyperscalers will be followed by data centers at on-site edge locations for financial companies, hospitals and medical research facilities, universities and other data-heavy end users. Along with this wave, he says there’s already a build-out underway that’s part of what’s called the 5th Industrial Revolution, where humans will work next to robots and other advanced technologies.
