This Week's Top Five Stories in Construction
Buildings and construction account for 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Carbon Leadership Forum. This significant environmental impact is pushing companies to rethink how they design and build their facilities, with Amazon's latest delivery station serving as a testing ground for sustainable construction practices.
The ecommerce giant is advancing its goal to decarbonise global operations through improvements across its network of fulfilment centres and delivery stations. Its new facility, DII5, has been designed with more than 40 market-ready technologies aimed at sustainable operation.
Entergy Louisiana has announced a second agreement with Meta to supply power to the tech giant's hyperscale data centre in Richland Parish, Northeast Louisiana, bringing the total projected customer benefit from both deals to approximately US$2.65bn over 20 years.
The latest agreement adds US$2bn in expected customer savings on top of the US$650m already announced under a prior arrangement. The expanded partnership has triggered one of the most ambitious infrastructure programmes in the region's recent history, with thousands of construction jobs expected between 2026 and 2031.
At its core, the deal is structured to ensure Meta bears the full cost of the new infrastructure it requires, while simultaneously unlocking construction activity that could reshape Louisiana's energy transmission network and generation capacity for decades to come.
Construction and infrastructure development are entering a new phase in the data centre sector, as operators move beyond traditional energy procurement models to build and own their own power generation facilities.
With market volatility, price instability and consumption levels all on the rise across the global energy sector, the approach in data centre construction is starting to shift towards independent power generation infrastructure.
For years, the dominant model was the power purchase agreement. These are long-term contracts with energy providers (usually renewables) that gave operators clean credentials without the construction complexity of owning turbines or solar panels.
Recently, however, that model has started to be interrogated. Last week, Soluna Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed developer of green data centres, announced it had fully acquired Briscoe Wind Farm in West Texas for a sum of US$53m, with the facility capable of generating 150 MW of energy.
The deal gives Soluna something that power purchase agreements simply cannot – complete ownership of the energy infrastructure that is powering its facilities.
Construction technology (ConTech) utilises innovative tools, software and automated machinery which works to boost productivity, sustainability and safety within building projects.
Tools such as BIM, drones, AI, 3D printing and robotics all help tackle some of the main concerns within the industry, such as labour shortages, rising costs and efficiency delays.
Through this, construction leaders are seeing untapped potential, lowered costs and greater efficiency across operations without sacrificing safety or responsibility.
Today, Construction Digital takes a look at the top 10 construction technology companies which are implementing innovative technologies in order to unlock value across the industry.
In recent years, the US has been pushing for a more independent and domestic supply chain operation across all industries.
As oil supply chains become more vulnerable, the US is aiming to reduce its reliance on other countries.
In an attempt to establish a stronger domestic operation, America First Refining (AFR) is constructing the first new refinery in the US in more than 50 years and it has chosen Fluor Corporation to design it.
Executives
Daniel Mallory
VP Worldwide Real Estate
John Belizaire
CEO
Phillip May
President & CEO of Entergy Louisiana
Pierre Bechelany
Business Group President - Energy Solutions
Rachel Peterson
Vice President of Data Centers
