Power transmission construction projects appear on the rise almost everywhere, with new project awards and backlogs at a historic high.
So says a survey just released by the firm Stifel looking at third quarter trends and remarking that “activity was above expectations across all verticals, including distribution, transmission, gas distribution, and substation work.”
An independent investment bank and financial services company based in St. Louis, Stifel looked at the transmission and distribution figures July to September of this year and deemed that overall project activity exceeded expectations.
Even more, says the survey narrative, the latest numbers represent “the strongest growth in the survey’s history.”
Central to the transmission and distribution boom is very obviously the massive planned and actual buildout of artificial intelligence data centers nationally, a trendline that the research firm MSI Economics pegs at $150 billion per year between now and 2030.
The work, according to industry reports, is also due to most of the transmission and distribution networks in the country being out of date and not large enough, having been built between the 1950s and 1970s. That network includes everything from transformers to poles to wires.
A barometer watched by everyone from investors to developers to builders, the Stifel transmission and distribution quarterly survey is based on input from some 100 firms.
October 19, 2026
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
