This Week in Trades, May 13, 2026

Power Construction Surged 59% Over the Past Year, and a Nuclear Apprenticeship Push Just Launched

59.3%. That is how much utility and gas construction starts climbed over the 12 months ending February 2026, according to the Dodge Construction Network. In March alone, electric power and utility construction activity jumped more than 350% month over month, driven by a wave of megaproject starts.

Bechtel and North America's Building Trades Unions signed a memorandum of understanding this week to modernize apprenticeship programs for nuclear construction, covering both traditional reactors and small modular reactors. The deal responds directly to rising power demand from AI infrastructure, data centers, and electrification.

Bechtel is working on the Natrium advanced reactor project in Wyoming and early-phase work at TVA's Clinch River SMR site in Tennessee. Both require skilled craft labor with credentials.

For electricians, this is the growth edge right now. High-voltage power construction, transmission, substations, plant electrical, requires journeyman or master credentials. The jobs are there. The bottleneck is licensed workers. If you are studying for your exam, you are heading into the strongest power sector hiring window in a decade.

Source: Construction Dive

Data Centers Pushed the Dodge Momentum Index Up 6.2% in April

6.2%. The Dodge Momentum Index, which tracks nonresidential construction projects entering planning, rose 6.2% month over month in April, according to Dodge Construction Network. Commercial planning climbed 8.1% month over month.

The driver was data centers. Commercial planning rose 37.2% year over year with data center work included. Strip it out and the gain falls to 5.8%. Forty-four projects valued at $100 million or more entered planning in April. The largest single commercial project: a $500 million Google data center in Buffalo, West Virginia.

Dodge director of economic research Sarah Martin was direct: "Data centers remain the largest driver behind growth in the Dodge Momentum Index."

For electricians, planning activity is the leading indicator. Projects entering planning in April typically break ground 12 to 18 months from now. Data center electrical contracts, medium-voltage switchgear, generator interconnects, large UPS systems, are queuing up for 2027. Getting licensed now puts you at the front of that line. See how licensing requirements differ across states at compare-states.

Source: Construction Dive

ComEd Has 40 GW of Data Center Load in Its Pipeline. Its Historic Peak Was 23.8 GW.

40 gigawatts. That is how much potential data center load is queued in ComEd's development pipeline, according to ComEd president Gil Quiniones, speaking at the 2026 IEEE PES T&D Conference in Chicago this week. ComEd's all-time peak demand, set in July 2011, was 23.8 gigawatts. The pipeline is nearly double that.

Load growth had been flat for over a decade. Now it is running at 3% per year. Utilities are not forecasting load anymore. They are negotiating it, project by project.

The supply side is not keeping up. New gas turbine orders carry lead times of five to seven years. Coal plants are retiring. Nuclear and battery storage are filling the gap but not fast enough.

Grid infrastructure investment is accelerating nationwide, substation upgrades, transmission expansion, distribution automation. This is where large-scale commercial and utility electrical work will concentrate for the next decade. If your exam prep covers service entrance calculations, feeder sizing, and demand factor under NEC Article 220, you are studying exactly the right material for the jobs coming down the pipeline.

Source: T&D World

---

Preparing for your license exam? Start with 15 free NEC 2023 practice questions, no account required.