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THE FRONTIER LINE
Hosts Wayne Aston and David Murray explore the critical global pillars of infrastructure development and energy production, from traditional methods to future-forward advancements. The Frontier Line covers the latest industry news, energy innovations, and sustainability trends that are shaping the future. Through expert interviews with industry leaders in renewable energy, utility-scale battery storage, and waste-to-energy technologies, the podcast provides insights into the evolving landscape of energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure. By focusing on the intersection of innovation and the politics of energy, The Frontier Line highlights transformative ideas and technologies poised to deliver cost-efficient, resilient, and sustainable solutions for global industries.
THE FRONTIER LINE
Company Spotlight-Quanta Services
Welcome back to the show. Friends of the Frontier Line. We're happy to be back in the studio. Dave, happy to see your face today.
Speaker 2:Good to see yours. Good morning everyone. Thank you again for joining us. We're really appreciating all the support and the downloads and the comments we're getting, so thank you very much for letting us know how we're doing and watching and so far loving what we're having to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, listen, guys, we've had some really high-level meetings up at the state capitol just this week actually, and it's really fun to be sitting in a meeting with some of the key leadership in our state and to make a point about a project or the talking know, talk the talking points and then to have very high level guys say wait a second, that's your show. I just listened to that episode, like this week, I thought I recognized the voice and the lights go on and they recognize. Yes, we are, you know, podcast hosts. But also, you know, we've got this marquee project here in Utah and it's really becoming quite the popular thing. So it's fun. We're getting some recognition, We've got some traction. Here. We're going to be covering an incredible company today, as we've done, our company spotlights over, you know, two episodes now. We've touched on some really big ones like Westinghouse and Kairos Power and others, Gensler and some of these companies we have an opportunity to work with, others we don't. We're just inspired by what they're doing. Today we're covering a company that we're not only very inspired by but we also have the unique opportunity and blessing to be working with on multiple layers.
Speaker 1:So today, guys, we're going to be talking about Quanta Services, and I'm just going to give you a couple quick bullets. I'm going to let Dave share a quote, because I think it sums up who Quanta Services is. But if you haven't heard of Quanta, they are the largest power transmission and distribution developer in North America. It is comprised of a family of over 300 different companies that they've acquired in recent years 62,000 plus employees. They're the largest employer of craft skilled labor and they're the largest employer of union and non-union line workers in North America. Just to tee this off, the magnitude of Quanta, this is a $30 billion annual revenue producer and one of the things I'd love about them, and we're going to be digging into the details today, guys. But when you talk about high voltage transmission lines, 765 kV is the highest capacity that we've got in the US and Quanta happens to be the only developer developing 765 kV lines. So that right, there is a serious point of distinction, Dave.
Speaker 2:Well, I think this and this is a quote from Qantas Services I think it sums up exactly who they are and I'll just jump into it. Every time you flip on a light, charge a phone or stream a video, there's a hidden force at work the massive infrastructure that carries energy from where it's generated to where it's used, and behind that infrastructure is one of the most important companies you've probably never heard of. That last thing is you've probably never heard of that last thing is you've probably never heard of. Yeah, everyone, anyone I meet and we get talking, we talk about this.
Speaker 2:You know, if quanta comes up, like, do you know about quanta services? Like no, I haven't heard of it. And and that is sort of the inside joke it's, it's, it's probably one of those largest companies you've never heard of, but it's absolutely critical to a lot of our lives and it's probably you've benefited from them and you didn't even know it yeah yeah, that's absolutely true um, I think, I think maybe part of the reason why mainstream kind of the, the, the citizen, has not heard of quantas, because their rise to where they are today has been fast.
Speaker 1:I mean, they have been on a neck-breaking pace, buying up companies, expanding and as we've had the opportunity to visit with certain key leaders at Quanta, we recognize that they share a similar entrepreneurial trailblazing spirit that we embody here at Invictus Sovereign. They have recognized opportunity, they've recognized what AI could do potentially in the future and they've started like leaning into that and investing big money into that inevitability. And that is distinct from many companies. It's certainly distinct from what our traditional utility companies are doing, because they don't seem to be grasping the same movement that Quanta has, and so in the last five years particularly, has been very remarkable. I mean we're not talking about just a company that develops transmission lines. We're talking about, you know, full EP services, epc services, excuse me, in electrification. We're talking about standing up gas generation. We're talking about civil engineering on a huge scale, data center services. I mean the depth over the 300 companies they've acquired is unprecedented, frankly. Over the 300 companies they've acquired is unprecedented, frankly.
Speaker 2:It's staggering. It is truly staggering. I mean there's a couple other real fun facts on like a who's who, but one of the things that I found is they also perform 85% of its own work. So everything from high-voltage transmission lines to massive data centers, this gives them something that is really critical and that's unmatched cost control and safety. Yes, so you know, they've you know and they've built. You know just another one they've built more than 25 percent of all utility scale wind, solar and storage capacity in the us today yeah, well well, let's let that sink in yeah, yeah, on that note, they are the number one solar and ESS contractor.
Speaker 1:The number one and and you know, when you hear of these big solar contractors like SunEdison and we've talked about some of these other big players in the solar market but to be number one, that's special. They've also, you know, ranked on 2025 Fortune 500 list obviously Number three Fortune Engineering and Construction, like the most admired companies, and they're the number one specialty contractor out there. Having put in 765 KV line is a big deal, guys. I don't even know how to underscore how important that is for the United States, but when we talk about the precedent of that, there's over 200,000 miles of transmission lines throughout the United States and there's only about less than 10% of that is 765. It's a new, emerging thing and recognizing that our legacy grid was never built for AI loads and we're talking about DOD and critical national security, like the data precedent that has now been established with AI, is something that our legacy grid was never built for, and so 765 uniquely meets much of the demand that these new loads are generating.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so it's an emerging new thing and you know, at Valley Forge, we've been talking about this plan with the Sentinel North 765 KVA line running from Valley Forge, you know, up to Clover Station, and establishing a 765KV backbone in Utah. That would be the first 765KV transmission in all of the western states, just so the listeners are clear like how rare that really is. And our Utah legislators are very, very excited about that and they've raised the flag all the way to the congressional level. So we're pulling in federal support financially and on a regulatory perspective to make this happen for Utah. Utah recognizes 765 as a major solve for Utah's energy sovereignty, and having that dedicated backbone up, you know, the central Utah corridor has a lot of meaning, and so to have quanta leading that like quanta is the only company in the world really that could pull this off for us here in Utah, and so that's really a gift to be able to be working with them on that project specifically.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and I mean I just I was talking to Dylan, the CEO of Summit Line Construction, one of the companies, one of the quantum services company, and he threw a fact out and I'm all you know it's rough, but you know, up until I think this year it's a little over 2,000, 2,400 miles somewhere in there, 2,000 plus of 765. He mentioned that by the end of, I think, next year or this year or next year, the number is going to be somewhere around 6,000. Wow, so tripled in a year or two's time. Very quickly, underscoring how quickly the grid is being, either you're taking existing lines and redoing them or you're running new transmission.
Speaker 2:And you know, any listener of the show knows we've talked about the grid fragility probably since almost day one.
Speaker 2:Yep, and 765 is the line and the transmission that we need in order, one of the things that we need in our grid right now to stabilize it.
Speaker 2:And so to talk about this in Utah and what it does for Utah, not only is it going to be great, fantastic for Utah, but it actually is going to be great for the entire West Western region of the United States because it will represent the first line in the West, which means obviously you can then grow from there and it becomes you know, it's where everything spiders out, meaning not that it's all going to spider from those things, but it can help lay the foundation for connecting a lot of these major points of, I guess, problems, the junctions where they just have so much power coming through they can't handle it because they have lower lines.
Speaker 2:And so this is the if you will, if you live in Utah, this is taking 7th East or taking the old I-15 and turning into an expanded I-15. I mean, you have to do that in order to meet capacity. We all know what that means. Or wherever you're living, if you have a three lane highway and all of a sudden you go up to six lanes on each side, it changes everything. And that's what we're talking about and that's what actually has to happen.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I've actually prepared a few bullets for you guys out there listening, because 765 KV transmission there's, there's. It's more than just capacity. There's a lot of factors that are meaningful for Utah, so let's talk about. I'm just going to lay these out, dave. So the first one is reduce power losses. Recognize that a 345 kV line or even a 500 kV line, which are prevalent throughout Utah, you can experience upwards of 7% to 9% power loss pushing electrons across those lines because of the nomenclature of the line. With a 765 kV you can achieve up to a 90% lower loss. You can get the losses down under 1% total loss over the line. That's huge when you're modeling power delivery and efficiency. The next one is the high capacity. With fewer conductors, a single circuit 765 kV line can carry approximately 4,000 megawatts or 4 gigawatts. That's the equivalent of three single circuit 500 kV lines or six 345 lines. So when, dave, you know is making this analogy to i-15 and like adding six new lanes or nine new lanes, that that's what we're talking about. Um, from an opera, an economic and operational benefits perspective, it requires less land because you've got a narrower rights of way, fewer parallel lines. The 765 kV infrastructure reduces the capital cost by almost 40% per megawatt mile compared to multiple lower voltage lines. Okay, so this is an economically sound approach here when we're trying to deliver big loads like over two gigawatts.
Speaker 1:Lower outage frequency is another huge one. Data from operators that have 765 kv lines experience outages almost six times less frequently than they do with 345 kv lines. And then the final two points on this is thermal and overload resistance. With up to six conductors per phase, 765 lines are virtually free of thermal overload risk, even under extreme conditions, like allowing them to handle surges from events like renewable intermittency, which is a big deal in the West, or demand spikes from AI and defense loads. Thermal overload is real and it's a real problem. And when we're bolting on all this solar and wind onto our existing old grids and that intermittency in different frequencies causes big problems on 345 and 500 that we can overcome with 765.
Speaker 1:The final point is overall system hardening. Dave, you hit the nail on the head here. We've been talking about hardening and modernizing our grid from probably the third episode in season. One Like this is an ongoing multiple-year conversation. But higher voltage reduces vulnerability to cascading failures and the line's capacity provides redundancy, making the grid more resilient to cyber attacks or physical disruptions. Emphasis on the mechanics of the transmission. But because we're highlighting Quanta and this is their jam we felt like you should know why this is so critical for Utah and the West and our nation from a national security perspective.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean it's something that is happening, in our opinion, probably not fast enough, but we see some thawing in regulation and we obviously we've talked about that on previous episodes there's there. We've seen initiatives, executive orders from the Trump administration talking about how do we, how do we let the market go in and solve this and help us solidify the grid? So we've seen all of these. I mean this is something we're going to continue to talk about. It has to happen, it has to be fixed and Quanta, whether you knew it before this or not, or whether you know it going forward, you're going to know it now.
Speaker 2:Quanta is the company behind all, or most, if not all, of this infrastructure going in place and they're just amazing. One of the things I wanted to kind of mention is beyond the scale and the magnitude of redoing our grid, which is substantial, you know, hardening our grid. They're they're a wonderful company because they've got all these other things that when you meet with them, you're like, okay, they actually put their mouths and their actions do speak loudly for what they believe in and how they run their companies. You talk to any employee, which we have talked to a lot of them. It's just rave reviews and I've talked to people who aren't involved with us on kind of a business level who didn't even know I was talking to quanta uh and and said, oh my gosh, they're just an amazing company, just just raved about what a great organization this is to work for. One of the things they mentioned this when we first met them that I I think we need to talk about is kind of their quanta cares, but also their a their aed initiative.
Speaker 1:It stood out to me and and this is where companies big companies and for the listeners, for those who don't know what aed is dave, I was going to get to that.
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, just just I'll. I'll explain that. This is where companies are saying, yeah, whatever you know we're doing, this is, you know we do this. This is, this is the, the stuff that may be behind the scenes that we actually are, because we're making choices about people and safety and how we do what we do. It's not just that we're going to go make money and grow a giant corporation, it's also we've got to do it the right way and they do it the right way. So an aed is your automated external defibrillator, so we see these on walls and things in public spaces. Um, and you may, okay, aeds, okay, well, they.
Speaker 2:Quanta has deployed nearly 18,000 AEDs, the largest deployment in North America, in its kind of North America in all, in its vehicles, and they trained lives of their employees. This is civilians, the surrounding communities where they're near something that happens, and some you know they're because their, their trucks, are everywhere and they're doing it. Somebody has one of these events. They've saved people and you know this is a lot of cost, a lot of time, and they do it because they're like, okay, we're doing it because it's the right thing to do, because we have a fleet out there in the communities, and one of the things we can do, not only for ourselves, but also for the people that we're serving, is we can make sure that our people are trained and then they can. They can be there in a moment's notice to save somebody's lives. I was really impressed by that, by what they're doing from the top down. That was one of the things, and that goes into their whole Quanta Cares program, which was established in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 to help Quanta employees devastated by that storm. Employees' donations matched by the company raised over a million dollars million and a half dollars, almost a million and a half dollars. The fund was continued to grow and benefit employees impacted by natural disasters was continue to grow and continue to grow and benefit employees impacted by natural disasters.
Speaker 2:Quanticare provides confidential, timely, short-term crisis relief for employees and family needing assistance, such as food, clothing, utilities, temporary housing. They care about their people and it is refreshing to see I mean, we've all walked into businesses or dealt with businesses where you can tell that people don't want to be there, they don't want to be affiliated with that company, they don't want anything to do with it. It's just a job. That is not my experience, nor has it been any of our team's experience on meeting any of these quantum employees, and to me that speaks volumes. And again we're sitting here rah, rah, rah. But they deserve it because that's not easy to do, especially on the scale. They're doing it to keep that level of love of company and mission and purpose and they do it because they know their company's got their back and again just an impressive company from that.
Speaker 1:Drive that home for the listeners. Talking about storm response, I mean Quanta has contributed 3.1 million annual hours of storm response and craft workers deployed is in the thousands. Like we talked about Hurricane Adalia in 2023, over 2,000 craft workers deployed. Hurricane Milton and Helena in 2024, over 2,500 workers deployed. Hurricane Milton and Helena 2024, over 2,500 workers deployed and similar numbers for Hurricane Beryl, hurricane Francine I mean they're super active on storm response and the Quantic Cares program. Their fleet it happens to be the third largest private fleet in North America with 80 helicopters. So you know, storm response using helicopters is one critical point of it, but also putting these really large lines in that's guys hanging off of helicopters, hanging wire in many cases because you're not climbing ladders up these huge monopoles to put these huge lines up. So this is very, very technical, highly skilled work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I came across one fact that was like staggering. Yeah, as a company, they've logged more than 100 million work hours in a single year. Yeah, yeah that is.
Speaker 1:I mean, who else is doing that? That is remarkable.
Speaker 2:It's remarkable. So, when we're asking who's hardening, building the next generation grid, who's doing all these things? Who's keeping the lights on it's Quanta. It's a Quanta services company period.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. We have had multiple meetings in person and we've got some contractual relationships in place and others blossoming with Quanta. But we were able to meet with them up in their Heber City offices and you know we'll give some shout outs to some of the friends now that we've got up there. You mentioned Dylan Welsh. He's a rock star. Matthew Winklestein another incredible guy. We've been able to have Colton Austin join us.
Speaker 2:He's incredible, dan Lazik, really smart, able to have Colton Austin join us. Colton.
Speaker 1:Austin, fantastic guy, super smart. Dan Lazik, really smart ops guy. Lauren Chandler, one of the lead regional guys in the organization, and this is high-level leadership. Greg Averitt is another who we've been able to meet with, all in the Hebrew city offices, and every single one of these guys is like salt of the earth, integrity, values driven guys. I mean you know we're sharing meals with these guys and you know they're they're talking about you know company culture. They're talking about the people it's. It's not about the numbers and the revenues, those speak themselves, but they're talking about being, you know, in puerto rico and having a basketball tournament and like the bruises they're giving each other, and then you know the camaraderie that they're building. It's so, it's so fun to listen to. And all of them have shared some details about their training. They're they're very quanta's very proud of the training facilities and the training programs and I wanted to touch on some of the things that Quanta's done in the training and are doing actively. So there are-.
Speaker 1:It's impressive. It's impressive so Quanta has trained over 30,000 people at their facilities just in 2024. And the Quanta Advanced Training Center at the Lazy Q Ranch in Texas, which was established in 2013 and constructed for one purpose to provide world-class training and cutting-edge skills. Located in LaGrange 2,300 acres, nearly 20,000 training days and growing annually. 2300 acres, nearly 20,000 training days and growing annually. And that is like bringing guys out of high school and college, giving them the technical, high voltage training to become linemen.
Speaker 1:And you know, what I loved was Lauren was sharing with us that they don't even require that these trainees work for Quanta. And it's funny because he was quoting I think he was quoting Duke, which is Earl Austin, the CEO, and in Duke's mind he's like he. Someone asked him why don't you, you know, buying these guys to go through your tree? You probably all the training you don't you know? Mandate that they work for. Quantity is like, because we know that if we give them the best training in the world, they'll go work for someone else, but they will be working for Quanta within a couple short years. Talk about a confidence mentality and that's how this works.
Speaker 2:The one thing you said also we want to train them the right way. We have to deal with a lot of bad work out there and we want to send these people in the world with the right way, because that just makes all of our lives better when we don't have to untangle, messes and like, literally and figuratively, but if they know how to do these things better, it's better for everybody and that you know. And you know in addition to they're going to come back and if they don't, they don't, at least they're trained the right way and they got, you know, they've got the right skills and they're making wherever they land better. Yeah, and we're happy about that. And so I mean they have Northwest Lineman College, so it's a 15-week comprehensive education training program in electrical line work, largest provider of line work training in the country. They have four campuses in the US. They're training 15,000 students annually. That's huge, which is a huge number. But you ask anyone in the industry. And we need, we need more, more and more and more.
Speaker 1:Yep. One of the big gaps is one of the big gaps of electrification and modernization in the United States.
Speaker 2:I think I was. I was saying this to someone. I think if I had, you know, if I had to go back and do it over again, I would absolutely consider, you know, going into the electrical field in this way because I think if you look at careers of the future and look at how this is changing you, Wayne and I have talked about this endlessly the need for lots of power infrastructure Someone's got to build this and, by the way, AI isn't going to take lineman jobs. Just putting that out there. And, by the way, AI isn't going to take lineman jobs, Just putting that out there AI is not going to take any of these.
Speaker 2:A lot of these jobs I mean 99% of these jobs will not be taken by AI, because you need people to go do the work, and even robotics. You can't do this with robotics, that's right. And so these and they're good paying, they can be dangerous jobs, but you talk to anybody and they love actually being on the field. Everybody misses being in the field. Yeah, that's how. That's how they enjoy working on these projects and getting their hands dirty in the field. These are great paying jobs. Yeah, uh, these are support your family on one income kind of jobs and you know, you know comfortably, and there are going to be more and more and more and more and more and more need for these. And obviously Quanta is right in the middle of that. They know what they need for their company and they represent what's going on in the greater industry.
Speaker 1:So on top of the Lazy Q and Northwestern Lineman College, they also have Luma College for technical training that provides industry-leading experience for companies, individuals and tasked with rebuilding Puerto Rico's electrical power infrastructure, and then also Stronghold University, which is just.
Speaker 1:These are all just the foundational elements for training. Tens of thousands of training days and students, huge impact. And you know, I'll bring a personal note driving us home with the core invictus team, our, our recently added chief electrical engineer, brady jenkins, and and also our chief power technology uh officer, fava jenjua, both former line, when both came up through the ranks through traditional training means, worked as linemen, worked with abb, worked with schneider electric and some of the bigs like that. And they, they are the the ones responsible for kind of having us focus on quanta and recognizing why this is such a critical component to what invictus sovereign is doing at valley forge. And boy has that, has that paid off in spades, brady and Favad shouting out thanks to those guys for having the insight and the experience on building lines, building substations, to recognize, as we're aggregating the all-star team, who has to be on the all-star team to have the depth. We talk about this often and Quanta is certainly that you know when it comes to these specialty trades.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yes. Thank you, brady and Pavad. I'm glad you brought it up. They deserve a lot, if not most, all the credit in making sure that you know again, it takes a team effort in making sure that you know again, it takes a team effort making sure that we're making the right decisions and we're doing the right things. We're, you know we're, we're open to all of the possibilities and they understood it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think brady said to me he's like look, you know, um, over the years I've watched all the best people in the industry get snapped up by quanta. Yeah, he's like they, they, they hire the's like. I've watched it in all the companies and all these people. I know it's always the best, some of the best people I've worked with, they're getting them. So you take notice that they're getting all the best people, that they've invested in bringing and hiring the best people and bringing them together, because they knew what it was going to take to build, continue to build on a world-class company. And so you know, kudos to Brady and I'm glad we finally settled on a title for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's shift the gears here, because you all know that. You know I'm a US veteran and I think everyone who's been paying attention knows that Invictus Sovereign has a serious soft spot in our heart for our veterans communities. We have our own Warriors, pride programming, preferential hiring protocols and training protocols, and so whenever we have an opportunity to work with a company that shares the sentiment to take care of our US veterans, it's a big deal. We highlighted QTS data centers a few weeks ago. They've got a very impressive veteran training and preferential hiring program. Well, quanta also has their own veterans program and so, in cooperation with the IBEW and NECA Electrical Training Alliance, they've established a joint veteran program at the Lazy Q and that's a four-month paid training program and designed to give recently exited active duty members skills they need to launch their civilian careers with Quanta as an apprentice, and the program is not easy. Passing isn't guaranteed, but for those who have what it takes, these are these are lifetime, you know reward rewards in a career path that is really exploding right now.
Speaker 2:And then the Northwest lineman college that I mentioned just a few minutes ago. They build on the skills of veterans to develop during their service critical thinking, leadership integrity. Hey, these are critical skills. You and I have had this conversation. You know these 25, 26, 30 types of critical skills are incredibly important. They realize that, so adding the technical knowledge they need to start a successful career in the energy infrastructure industry. All NLC Northwest Lineman College programs are approved for VA educational benefits.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. And they also are directly working with the DOD Skill Bridge. So they are a DOD Skill Bridge industry partner and I think we've talked about the DOD Skill Bridge program because that connects transitioning service members with industry partners so they can gain that real-world civilian work experience through specific industry training. So they're plugged in in all the ways to support our veterans and we're grateful for their commitment to doing that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I mean, I've said it once, I'll say it a million times. You know, veterans come out of the military and it's something that I see. I was so happy to see Quanta actually doing this because I've seen for what does that mean Really. Okay, you served on a, on a nuclear submarine? Okay, I understand that. But you know, spend any time you know any veteran you'll. You'll know when they come out of the military they are steeped in these skillsets, these you know, some call them soft skills, I call them critical skills. Gary Vaynerchuk has called them the hard skills of the business world. Anybody who's served has these. They're instilled in them, they just drip with them. Corporate America's, just in the past, never really understood, industry's never really understood how to properly integrate them. I'm so glad companies like Quanta are finally recognizing that. Oh, they've got all the skill sets we need. We just need to train them on these things.
Speaker 1:They already have all that yeah.
Speaker 2:On the technical aspects. They already have all the other stuff. They have the right stuff. We know they've got that. We just need to get them educated on the technical stuff and we'll have amazing rockstar employees, and so I'm glad to see Quanta doing what they're doing.
Speaker 1:So so let's dive a little bit into their backing and their culture and their leadership. Okay, so for the listeners that you know, quanta is a publicly traded company. They're backed by Blackstone and Vanguard, among others, but very well capitalized by the private equity markets, and that speaks to leadership and culture. And so at the helm of Quanta we have Earl Austin Jr. He's a president, ceo and director, otherwise known as Duke, otherwise known as Duke. Yes, and Duke. He is the guy like calling the shots and guiding this company with all of this culture and all of this incredible, prescient leadership, the acquisitions and the overarching strategy. And we're eager to meet with Duke as the opportunity presents, working closely with him as Jayshree Desai, cfo, you're dealing with the Blackstones and the vanguards of the world. You've got to have the best of the best in your CFO seat. They got to be able to talk that institutional talk Right and also to lead a publicly traded company with 30 billion dollars in annual revenue. That's a big deal.
Speaker 2:It's a big, big deal big deal.
Speaker 1:It's a big big deal. We've got reggie probst. He's the coo and and probst electric is one of the key foundational partners that that. What came early on as quanta, has kind of grown into the albatross that they are with all of the different companies. He currently manages day-to-day ops. Um, we've go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I can say we I don't know, we got bj ducie, uh. President of strategic operations. Yeah, leads strategic operations. Value is technologies, assets, new opportunities across quants's portfolio. Um, he's another one of the one of the one of the people leading the charge absolutely yep.
Speaker 1:And there's guys with a with a company of this size. There's. There's guys with a with a company of this size. There's. There's obviously thousands of people and hundreds at the top, you know dozens in the C-suite like governing this, but just just giving some credit to the top, top, the shot callers here of the company.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, um, yeah, absolutely, they, they uh that I mean again, we've talked about it already, but this is one of those companies where they have taken on the role of they do set the leadership, it's very apparent to me sets an amazing tone for this company. They walk the walk, they talk the talk. These are respected people, not only outside of the company but within the company, and then they also listen to their people. That's the thing that occurs to me is that they listen to their leadership. In all of these organizations, all these 200 companies, they're saying we work for you, what do we need to do? How do we need to react to the market? Because they recognize that it's the people on the ground that are seeing what they're seeing. They're seeing certain, they're seeing changes.
Speaker 2:We know we met with leadership at a one of those own companies and they were immediately you know immediately engaging and saying okay and bringing to the attention, saying and, and that company responded in kind. The leadership responded guys say okay, that's a very interesting opportunity. What do we need to do to help you? So it's a very active and proactive kind of environment and, again, this is what good leadership looks like. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So let's talk about performance. Let's talk about some of the top completed projects and some of the projects that they're actively engaged in because, you know, for connecting dots for the listeners out there, if you're in the energy and infrastructure space already, then you're going to recognize some of these projects as we kind of check them off here. So the Gateway West transmission line project was completed for Pacific Corps. That was roughly 150 miles of 230 kV lines in Wyoming and roughly 850 miles of 500 kV lines across Wyoming and Idaho. Okay, and that would enhance grid reliability in the West, supporting all of the renewable integration that you see in Wyoming and Idaho wind and solar.
Speaker 2:Yes, in Arizona and New Mexico, they delivered the Sun, the sunzia project. If you've heard that, that's the largest renewable project in us history 3,515 megawatts, 3.5 gigawatts, if we're, if we're doing our math right yeah, of wind and 551 miles of 500 kv transmission lines. A massive, massive project.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. Right there up in that similar category is the Grain Belt Express transmission line, and they were awarded a $1.7 billion contract in May of 2025. So this year, building the largest transmission line in US history, 800 plus miles from Kansas to Indiana, and that enables four gigawatts of clean energy delivery. So that's something that's kind of an emerging project. That's also again setting new standards and precedents.
Speaker 2:And you know if we're going to go across a pond a little bit, because they're not just they don't have, just they focus a lot in the US but they have subsidiary CPP in Australia. They built the Waratah Super Battery, the largest battery project in the Southern Hemisphere 850 megawatts of backup capacity providing instant grid stability.
Speaker 1:That's incredible.
Speaker 2:And I was going to say back to home. You know the bigger number. They've delivered so far over 100,000 megawatts of renewable projects and nearly 40,000 megawatt hours of storage. Just to give you, like the overview of just the US Staggering numbers in the US. We are hoping to add to that number.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're committed to adding to that number, for sure.
Speaker 2:Hope is not the right word. We are on a scorchy pathway to add to that number.
Speaker 1:Just to tick some quick bullets. You know they did the Fort McMurray transmission project that's up in Alberta. You know we have been careful to note that most of these biggest best in is not just in the US, it's North America, it's the entire continent leader in. You know many of these categories. They did the Hornsdale Wind Farm battery energy storage system in Australia. The Hornsdale Wind Farm Battery Energy Storage System in Australia. Let's see here you mentioned SunZia, grain Belt, colorado's Power Pathway, multi-segment high-voltage transmission across Colorado. And then, when you talk about the solar portfolio, as the 2025's top US solar provider, active in installing over 10,000 megawatts across multiple sites, includes EPC for large-scale solar farms, trackers and interconnections, I mean, guys, no one's doing it on this scale. Let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2:No one's doing it on the scale and uh, you know, not only are they doing grid kind of the the transmission, but they also manufacture their own domestic transformers in pennsylvania and new york, so they're reducing reliance on uh foreign supply chains. On the digital side of their company, quant has delivered over 21 million square feet of data centers, providing more than 5,000 megawatts of critical modular power for clients like Microsoft, meta, aws and switch Um. So they're doing it all and they're they are in if they don't do it. They're figuring out how to do it best and they're saying, okay, who, what company, does it best? Let's, let's buy that company or let's partner with that company. Let's figure out how to work with that company and do it, because we need to be doing that too.
Speaker 1:So, in continuing the focus on the people that we've had specific interaction with, lance Hendricks brings over 30 years of engineering expertise in gas generation and Lance is on the team for Valley Forge Project who's already started helping us work through work into feasibility, pre-feed feed studies on the Sentinel-1 power complex, and he's joined by Shane Anderson, who's also an incredible engineer coming from gas generation, former floor corporation guy, another huge gas builder, corporation guy, another huge gas builder. And so this team is just.
Speaker 1:The depth is hundreds and hundreds of years of deep expertise here, and they're all really fun guys to work with too.
Speaker 2:They are. It's fantastic. And you know, we've we've mentioned, uh, you know they own almost 300 companies. I mean I'll I'll give you a quick list of some of those companies. You've probably heard of them. You just hadn't heard of quanta services. So you've got par electrical contractors, north houston, pole line, nhpl, mj electric, north star energy services, infrasource, blattner Energy, consolidated Power Projects that's the VP of Australia. You've got the Quanta Infrastructure Solutions Group. You've got Price Gregory International this is in their pipeline Gas and Industrial Infrasource, underground Milner Pipeline, continuum Electrical. Then they've got a Quanta Technology, pennsylvania Transformer Technology we just mentioned that Niagara Transformer, sherman and Riley, northwest Lineman College we talked about. And then, obviously here in Utah, summit Line Construction. So you know, and what we heard is I didn't know this they have a thousand employees. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here in Utah that's right.
Speaker 2:So you know. And what's Summit Line doing? They're doing substation construction, upgrades, distribution systems, emergency response, storm restoration, regional. You know they're, you know they're, they're, they're doing a ton of stuff in the west. Uh, so these are companies all around us and again you may have, you may have heard some of some of those not heard, of quanta, but it is all quant quanta.
Speaker 1:So another guy that I wanted to shout out here was David Berry, because he just got assigned to the Valley Forge team just this last week.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you said that and what an incredible add to that because, specifically when we talk about experience on certain systems, david just shared an email with us yesterday that I was just blown away Specific experience in the background at the Crystal Switchyard in Nevada, which is where our Sentinel South line is intended to go, connect from Valley Forge at Crystal in Southern Nevada.
Speaker 1:Also, he's got deep background working at IPP Delta substation. So again, where we're tapping Sentinel West from Clover to IPP and then lots of background at Clover itself, and what we're talking about guys is to upgrade Utah's grid and the substations required for these interconnections. We're talking about a $200 million tie-in upgrade at Clover Station, like upgrading that substation. Now some folks in the industry are going to hear this and be like well, how the heck did I not know about that? Well, because you know we've been planning behind the scenes for a long time. It's just now starting to become more public and so you'll hear more about this in the news, I think, as the weeks go by. But having guys that have experience specifically on these systems and in these substations in the design and operations is critical to making this all work.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, and it's you know. I'll mention a couple other companies to bring point. It's nice to also find out we have some other companies here in Utah that are also here in Utah for our Utah listeners. You know Flair Construction. If you've ever heard of Flair Construction, I mean they operate in 12 western states. That's a quantum services company, right FiberTel, who operates in the northern part of their kind of their jurisdiction has been the northern part of Utah. They own a fiber company. These are you know.
Speaker 2:So again, these are groups that you know at, you know, on different projects. You know we're excited to engage wherever we are, wherever, whatever state you know in the future we might be in it's you know we're going to be working. You know there's, there are Quanta services companies there Again, at home. For us it's nice to be able to work with some Quanta services companies and Qua on a corporate level here at home and because, as we've said many times about our project in Utah, we're a built-in Utah for Utah and so the more workers, the more value that is that stays in our borders. It's good for us, we like that, we want that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. I thought it would be good for the listeners to be able to quantify their specific experience in data center, and particularly the electrical modules and installation.
Speaker 2:When you say quantify, is that pun intended?
Speaker 1:Quantify. Yeah, I didn't even intend that but I like that. I'm glad you caught that. So, guys, if you're paying attention to the data center space and this is common, like what we've learned here is, there's a lot of folks that are really steeped in the data center conversation. You know they're on LinkedIn and they're watching all the data center. Much fewer constituent in my experience of folks paying attention to the electrification or the energy and infrastructure, but you know, but putting it together brings a really broad constituent. So, current major projects meta they're working on meta projects in Utah, new Mexico, idaho and Ohio Battery plants working on in Ohio and Kansas. They're working on projects with Vantage in Washington and Ohio. They're working with Amazon in Ohio and then they're working with Edgecore, microsoft and Switch. These are all the biggest names, guys. I mean all of the major hyperscalers are going to quanta for this electrification. Uh, you know, tying them into the grid and making the data centers work absolutely, absolutely, um, they.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to see this industry and I was was just looking last night and you know I follow a lot of sources. Now I'm trying to kind of keep up with everything. Obviously, wayne and I are doing our best while running, you know, all of the stuff. We have Also trying to keep up with the news of the day and see what's going on in the world around us, and so I'm using certain apps and programs to kind of help bring in articles that talk about companies that we're interested in or whatever. To your point about data centers versus the electrical side of it, my data centers feed has exploded, yeah, Like exploded, exploded, yeah, like it just exploded. So when when I started, when I created a data center's feed to kind of like pulling news of data centers from around the world I think maybe that was a couple years ago now it was probably around, you know, started around like maybe 50 if I was lucky articles a week, and now I'm well over a thousand000 a week. Now electrical is coming along, but not nearly as much.
Speaker 2:To your point, there's a lot of conversation going. I mean that's where everybody's talking. It's a data center. Data center you can't open up even social media to a certain degree, and not see somebody talking about data centers Good, bad, ugly, everything and everything in between. But just from an amount of conversation, um, there are a lot of categories out there. Honestly, if you were to say, okay, I want to talk about this topic, um, that would have the same kind of activity in them, especially when you're talking about this is all one source. This isn't just you know one. Let's say, you know, uh, information about you know a candidate or one of our. This is like about an entire industry, and to see so many articles coming out every week oh yeah, is is crazy. And to see where it came from in just a short period of time. Again, electricals is picking up. But that's that is where the guy just want to know. That's where the conversation is and it should be.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it should be. And, by contrast, like you know, dealing with senators and high out of these projects that are data co-located with power, Okay, and it kind of ends there. Lots of smoke out there in the press. Oh, you know gigawatts and multiple, you know two figure gigawatt generation and just it feels like an ego contest Largest this in the world, largest that. But rarely are you hearing about anyone addressing the gaps in what it takes to actually execute it. You're almost never hearing about someone solving a transmission issue. Right, you know, co-locating data to power is limited in the business model itself. That's not really an uplift. The community that's not really an uplift. The community proposition A major data center is going to bring 30, 40, 50 new jobs. Unless you're met and you're building something the size of Manhattan, then it's a bigger number of jobs. But jobs is really low in the data center employment side versus like manufacturing, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of part-time jobs building it. You'll have a lot of influx of construction, but those long-time, full-time jobs, depending on the facility, it's not the it's, it's not, it's not the the number that you've, you know it's not the numbers we're hearing.
Speaker 1:Well, and this is and I'm just trying to dispel for the listeners some of the myth, some of that smoke that's up in the media, like I get a call every week. I get a call almost every day now. Hey, did you see? And people forwarding me the article, did you see this announcement in Miller County? Or did you see this announcement in Miller County? Or did you see this thing in Ohio? And you know these huge, these huge press releases.
Speaker 2:But we talked about one a couple weeks ago the Wyoming. That announcement in Wyoming. It's in Wyoming like you know.
Speaker 1:But no conversation around transmission. I can't even imagine you're talking about 10 gigawatts of on-site consumption. Come on, I mean, there's so much out there. I just want to call to the listener's attention that as you watch the frenetic energy out there in the marketplace, you've got to be considering transmission. Even QTS, one of the largest data-centered guys in the world, are getting pushback.
Speaker 1:A lot of the pushback has to do with transmission. A lot of that pushback has to do with permitting and city council councils and county councils just not approving it because they don't want it in the community, because of perception. Sometimes it's false perception, sometimes it's legitimate, sometimes it's actually warranted that if you're going to come in and spend I don't know, $50 billion or $95 billion in Pennsylvania, but that the residential rate payers are going to get a 35% increase on the price of power, that's a problem. That's a real problem that gets to be resolved right. But behind the scenes, just know that when it comes to the transmission quanta is is, they are the solutions provider in almost all of these scenarios that you're seeing in the media almost always.
Speaker 2:And ultimately you and, and you have to solve, we have to solve all of those things. It's not you can't just say, oh hey, here's this thing and this thing. There are so many factors that go into the possibility of a successful project, the uh, and one of the main ones today, as you just said, wayne, is transmission. Is you? You? Because ultimately, whether it's an islanded project or not, mostly you're going to want to, they're going to eventually probably interconnect on some level, especially at the scale they're talking about. For all kinds of reasons, for funding reasons, for practicality reasons, for, you know trying, you know trying to be, if you will, even a good neighbor or help, help support the, you know help be a grid resiliency partner. All there are all kinds of reasons why even IPP projects are interconnecting. But you have to solve transmission, transmission, transmission, transmission. You know we say location, location, location. In retail it's transmission, transmission, transmission. We don't have enough. Everybody knows it. Quant is building as fast as they can, thankfully, and thankfully, you know we have enough of the industry who's able to finance these endeavors. And now we finally see, I think there's. You know we have enough of the industry who's able to finance these, these, these, these endeavors, and now we finally see I think there's, you know, in quiet whispers in in politics for maybe the last 10 years or so, 15 years, there's been, there's been there, there's been some attention paid to oh yeah, we. It's a problem we've got to solve.
Speaker 2:Ai because of ai. Ai exposed everything. Yeah, they exposed the fragility of the grid. It just did. We were able to kick it down the road, kick it down the road, kick it down the road and all of a sudden it just forced everything out of the shadows and said, no, these are the actual problems. Now we can't actually do the things we need to do, and I'm very grateful that companies like Guanta have been doing steady what they've been doing, because we're going to need them to help build out the infrastructure in the US.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's a really exciting opportunity too, and maybe we'll end this. We're coming up on the hour here, but the opportunity is what you just hit on, dave. It's the fact that the problems have been obscured in the shadows of not having demand. That's what we're dealing with today. The explosive demand has exposed all the cracks and the fragility in our grid, but, more importantly than that, exposing it, but also now there's legitimately state level and federal will to do something dramatic to change it. Like, oh my god, we've got to modernize and harden the grid and it's a dramatic overhaul. And you're not getting that done without quanta, specifically, and companies like quanta. So, yeah, like overhauling the entire national grid. That's really, that's really the the capstone on this conversation absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, the future isn't going to be one on blueprints alone. Right, that's right, it's not. It's going to be won by the companies who can build safely, reliably, at scale you With technology that's engineered for today, not a technology that's 50 years ago Insulators and components, and line.
Speaker 1:This is, you know, high-speed, low-drag, like next-gen gear, all of it. Talk about the monopoles, the cable, all of it. It's incredible. It's, all you know, 2025 and engineered for the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the future and in that future race. You know who's leading right now in this particular space and building this infrastructure? It's Quanta. Yeah, so it's been great to talk about them because they truly are an amazing company and it's very easy to say good things about them. That's the thing, it's just, it's it. It's. It's very easy to say good things about them. That's, that's the thing, it's. It's just it's easy to come. It's been easy to have a conversation and just keep talking about how good of a company they are and how much they're they're doing and will continue to do, and so, uh again, if you haven't heard about them, now you know about them. I hope you pay attention.
Speaker 1:They've got a great website too. Yeah, you go check out the website, absolutely, and I'll tease the listeners now. I know we're going to get some interviews from some of the Quanta guys. We're already working on it, so just stay with us and we'll bring some key guys on the show as soon as we can, but those will be great interviews, they will, for sure. Okay, guys, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2:It's been fun, Wayne. Until next time on the Frontier Line.
