Joe Gough, Superintendent at Hanley Energy Electrical (HEE) and explains how they spotted the opportunity to fill a clear gap in the market and create a technically focused electrical company with the ambition and foresight to invest in the future.
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Hanley Energy Electrical: Experts in Installation
In late 2019, Hanley Energy consolidated the breadth and caliber of operations in the US with the launch of Hanley Energy Electrical. The growth of our newest division has been impressive, and the elite team’s mindset is suitably positive about the challenges ahead.
Based in the heart of Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley, Hanley Energy Electrical (HEE) assembles a team of technical electrical specialists immersed in mission-critical environments. That might sound similar to Hanley Energy, which began US operations in Loudoun County, VA in 2016 (the new 40,000 sq ft HQ opened in Ashburn in 2024), but there’s a key difference.
While Hanley Energy has established itself at the forefront of critical power and energy management, Hanley Energy Electrical was launched to plug a gap in the marketplace. In short, there was a place for a technical electrical company willing to invest in the future.
Joe Gough is Superintendent at HEE and explains how Hanley Energy spotted the opportunity. “We were able to provide the equipment at Hanley Energy, but not the installation,” he says. “We realized that we could be more competitive and push deeper into the market with installation.”
The HEE division was born, starting with control installations, testing and commissioning. The team’s specialist domain is Medium Voltage testing and splicing, which involves HV Cabling (Up to 35kV) from the grid to the customer’s switchgear.
In the world of data centers, a minor issue with power can quickly have a major client impact, so the HEE team is embedded on site from the very beginning until the job is done. That starts with MV cabling to the site’s infrastructure, commissioning of equipment, acceptance testing for all equipment arriving on site, through to mechanical and electrical monitoring, including Electrical Power Management System (EPMS) and Building Management System (BMS) delivery.
If there is an issue, the team surges into action and stays. “When we go to a site, it’s because something critical isn’t working, and we don’t leave until it’s fixed,” says Joe.
Simplicity and Savings for the Customer
Hanley Energy Electrical operates in a niche that may be complex, but for the customer the goal is simplicity and cost-effectiveness. Before HEE, data center managers had to find a trusted source for their hardware and software, then launch a search for someone to install it, often at prohibitive cost.
Hanley Energy Electrical brought that whole process in-house and under one roof. Instead of Hanley Energy sub-contracting to installers, the company took over the entire function to create a 100% turnkey solution at a more competitive price. For the customer, there’s just one person to call instead of a suite of contractors.
“Critical power management is highly specialized, but it’s still relationship based,” explains Joe. At the time Hanley Energy moved to Northern Virginia, that relatively small area accounted for around 85% of the global internet. Connecting the world was the task of a tight-knit community whose engineers have since risen to senior management positions at data centers across the country. Hanley Energy Electrical can now operate with them on mutual trust built on years of working together.
“We Shine in a Crisis”
Although some of the work HEE does is reactive, there’s no shortage of opportunities to come to the rescue when things go wrong at short notice. Medium Voltage is a high-caliber, high-level niche in which only a few installers are skilled enough to operate. It’s the kind of work, according to Joe, where you have to “put on a flash suit and be extremely competent and confident.”
That mindset is nothing new to Joe and his team. In the early days of his career, he spent all of his time at one of the very first data centers, so he’s ingrained in the expectation to be on standby and take responsibility quickly if something goes wrong at his client’s site.
It takes a pragmatic, agile approach, and it’s no coincidence that Joe serves as the troubleshooter within HEE, managing labor, hiring, unions, processes, project management, bidding and finance of projects on his To Do list.]
Five Years of Solid Growth
When operations began in earnest in 2020, Hanley Energy Electrical was exclusively serving a single customer, as is often the case in the data center industry. That had increased to 3 or 4 customers by year two, and by year three there was a sense of really “getting our feet in” the market, according to Joe.
Instead of broadening the offering, however, the team took an alternative approach and decided to double down on a narrower niche. There was a feeling that a lot of the work available wasn’t focused enough and didn’t call for the level of technical expertise HEE specialized in. In response, the team opted to distance itself from the crowded middle and its ongoing labor shortage challenges to forge ahead on the elite highly technical work.
It’s a strategy that is delivering. From a small office in Northern Virginia, HEE has now established a footprint in the central region at Columbus, Ohio and on the west coast at Boardman, Oregon. Currently, HEE employs around 160 staff in Northern Virginia, 55 in Oregon and 28 in Ohio, and the conservative plan is for 20% growth annually.
Eyes on the Future: Recruitment and Training
That ambitious target assumes a steady pipeline of skilled personnel, so keeping everyone qualified up to the latest standards is a priority. HEE trains in-house at the self-styled “Hanley Safety Academy”, as well as providing training for outside data center personnel and completing safety audits for customers. HEE has been testing to the NETA standards with a highly skilled team. Having Hanley Energy Electrical resources removes an additional layer of complexity.
Recruiting fresh talent involves both hiring internally from across the global business and introducing external hires to the foot of a steep learning curve. “You’ll learn more in a month here than you would in a year somewhere else,” says Joe. The team is skilled in splicing, commissioning, controls and testing and is expected to know the intricacies of every piece of equipment inside and out.
All Eyes on AI
The presence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is looming over the industry, as it is in many others. While Hanley Energy is focused on addressing the extreme cooling demands of AI servers, HEE is more concerned about power consumption. As well as retrofitting buildings, the future calls for bigger lines and breakers to handle more power.
It’s a challenge, but also an opportunity if you’re one of only a select few able to handle Medium Voltage switching. We have the commissioning resources to start up new AI equipment to ensure minimum downtime as the AI upgrade occurs. We also have seasoned testing technicians to acceptance test the new equipment and troubleshoot anything that may occur.
Learn more about Hanley Energy Electrical
HEE serves data centers, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, renewable energy, and oil & gas. To learn more about Hanley Energy Electrical’s areas of expertize, services and accreditations, click below.
