Rip Van Winkle has nothing on the U.S. electric-transmission industry, which has slept for nearly two decades while market restructuring changed the world around it. Now, it's waking up after years of underinvestment, and engineers and constructors are scrambling to prepare for new construction on a scale not seen since the 1970s.
Many see the demand coming, but they hesitate to say when it will hit. Few utilities are building more than "Band-Aid-type projects," says Abraham Pichardo, a high-voltage specialist recently hired by Edwards & Kelcey Inc., Morristown, N.J., in anticipation of the boom. "The business has been a little slow," but that could change "suddenly," he adds.