Founded in 1915 in Kansas City, Missouri it is now headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas It is a global engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) and consulting company specializing in infrastructure development in power, oil and gas, water, telecommunications, government, mining, data centers, smart cities and banking and finance markets.In 2020, BV was the 7th largest majority employee-owned company in the United States. In 2020, with revenues of $3.7 billion, the company was ranked by Forbes as the 123rd largest privately owned company in the United States. Engineering News-Record, which compiles and publishes rankings of the largest construction and engineering firms annually, measured by gross revenues, ranked BV first in telecommunications, second in power, fifth in water, eighth in wastewater, 13th in international markets, and 15th in the overall top 500 design category, in the United States in 2016.BV has more than 100 offices worldwide and has executed projects in more than 100 countries on six continents.
As hyperscale and colocation AI data centers continue to expand, the electric grid is increasingly required to support large, concentrated loads, with individual facilities ranging from 500 MW to 2 GW. Current projections estimate that approximately 50 GW of AI data center capacity will require grid connectivity in the United States by 2030. While prior research has extensively examined the environmental and operational impacts of AI data centers, as well as their potential role as grid-interactive assets, limited attention has been given to the challenges associated with their scalable deployment through engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) processes. This manuscript addresses this gap by proposing a phased development framework for AI data center expansion. The approach is designed to enable developers to meet aggressive time-to-market objectives while navigating multi-year constraints associated with interconnection approvals and lead times associated with the procurement of component equipment. A modular construction architecture is presented, along with a detailed analysis of integrated energy systems and the role of hybrid on-site generation in supporting incremental capacity growth. Electromagnetic transient simulations (EMT) are used to evaluate system performance, demonstrating that a combination of on-site natural gas generation and grid-forming energy storage can reliably support data center operations during early and intermediate deployment phases. The study further examines the transition to full grid interconnection, including the capability of the data center to operate in islanded mode during grid disturbances. Finally, the manuscript compares grid-forming control strategies for system reconnection and restoration under varying conditions.
This manuscript develops a unified, applications-oriented engineering framework for Substations of the Future that can withstand non-stationary 500-year flood events, addressing a critical gap in how erosion control, geotechnical stabilization, green infrastructure, and phased retrofit planning are currently treated in isolation. Electrical substations are among the most flood-exposed nodes in the bulk power system, with tens of thousands of U.S. assets located in 100 and 500-year FEMA floodplains, leading to cascading outages and large annualized economic losses under climate-amplified storms. In response, the paper consolidates several standalone engineering design essentials into a single multi-scalar resilience framework beginning with articulating concrete block (ACB) revetments for flexible, permeable erosion protection that support aquifer recharge and LEED-oriented heat-island mitigation. Lime, cement, and fly-ash-based soil stabilization is explored along with green infrastructure, including permeable hardscape, bioswales, and targeted floodplain preservation. A phased roadmap for resiliency upgrades for existing brownfield legacy substations through deployable barriers and pumps, perimeter ACB and drainage upgrades, yard re-grading and equipment elevation is also presented. Collectively, these elements operationalize resilience against 0.2 percent annual exceedance probability events while reducing life-cycle costs and delivering co-benefits in stormwater quality, habitat restoration, and long-term grid reliability.
