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Autonomous Construction Equipment Trends

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bonding needs. What is Autonomous Construction Equipment? Driverless vehicles are becoming more prevalent as the technology develops, though fully autonomous vehicles are probably still a couple of years away from being a common sight on the nation’s highways. History has shown that heavy equipment—tractors, bulldozers, dump trucks, cranes, excavators, and the like, tends to be about a decade behind the automotive industry in terms of technology adoption. But autonomous construction equipment is likely the future. Examples from the Mining Industry Experiments with autonomous mining equipment pointed the way for the development of autonomous construction equipment. If autonomous dump trucks could move without a driver, there was no reason to think that construction operations couldn’t use them to a similar advantage in terms of fuel and time efficiency. The use of such vehicles, controlled remotely by an operator much as drones are, maximizes precision and optimizes equipment utilization, while eliminating the possibility of personal injury to human drivers. From Semiautonomous to Fully...

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Nonresidential Construction Outlook for 2022-2023

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your nonresidential construction bond needs. What is Categorized as Nonresidential Construction? Any construction other than putting up single family or multifamily homes and apartment buildings is considered non-residential construction. Nonresidential construction typically is divided into categories: institutional and commercial construction, specialized industrial construction, and infrastructure and heavy construction. Find out the non-residential construction outlook for 2022-2023 below. Institutional and Commercial Construction Institutional and commercial construction involves building new structures such as the ones listed below and repairing and maintaining existing ones. Institutional project owners tend to be government and nonprofit entities while commercial projects typically are commissioned by private companies. Institutional Religious Hospitals/Clinics Nursing/Assisted Living Libraries/Museums Fire/Police/Courthouse/Prison Military Schools/Colleges Commercial Hotel/Motel Retail Parking Garages Amusement Sports stadiums Office Government Offices Laboratories Warehouse Specialized Industrial Construction This category includes structures requiring a high level of specialized knowledge to design, build and maintain. Specialized industrial projects typically are for-profit corporations, such as chemical companies and utility companies. Oil refineries Chemical plants Power plants (nuclear/hydroelectric) Infrastructure...

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Top Construction Management Software

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. Advantages of Software as a Service For most of its history, construction management software was sold on a licensing basis. Once customers purchased a license, they owned the software and installed it on their own devices. The software could be used only on those devices. Most software today is cloud-based, referred to as software as a service, or SaaS. Customers pay a monthly or annual fee to use it, which allows them to access their data from wherever they happen to be, either through a mobile app or by logging in through a browser. Who Needs Construction Management Software? Arguably, every construction contracting firm needs construction management software. But different contractors may have different needs. Some software packages that are fine for small to mid-size contracting businesses may not be sufficient for larger contractors or for specialty subcontractors. The best approach to selecting an appropriate construction management software solution is to identify the functions and features needed, then determine...

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Greenscape Construction Trends

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What Is Greenscape Construction? Greenscaping is a type of landscaping architecture that aims to create sustainable landscapes that benefit society and the environment while saving money. Greenscape construction projects range in size from small municipal parks and school campuses to sports plexes, industrial parks, and other spaces comprising hundreds of acres. The project owners may be government entities, commercial enterprises, sports complexes, or institutions such as colleges or medical centers that are making a commitment to environmental stewardship. In many municipalities, they have adopted greenscaping as the primary approach for dealing with condemned buildings and vacant lots, turning such spaces into sustainable greenspaces, including gardens, playgrounds, parks, or sports facilities. In the spirit of environmental stewardship, someone should deconstruct rather than demolish unwanted buildings, making it easier to salvage building materials for reuse. What Does Greenscaping Involve? Greenscaping typically involves preservation of existing ecosystems and incorporates sustainable design elements such as green roofs, stormwater collection systems, rain gardens, irrigation...

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Interconnection Standards for Solar

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your solar bond needs. What Is Interconnection? Interconnection is the process by which solar energy systems are connected to the electric grid. Standards that vary by state govern the interconnection process. Interconnection permits, however, are issued at the local level, for example by municipal building departments. Why Do Interconnection Standards Exist? Standards help ensure transparency, consistency, and ultimately safety. While interconnection standards are established at the state level, many states are emulating the standards developed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for projects up to 20 megawatts. These FERC standards are called Small Generator Interconnection Procedures (SGIP). Many states have also patterned engineering and safety requirements for interconnection after the IEEE 1547 and UL 1741 standards. Different standards may apply depending on whether or not the solar system is net metered, its capacity requirements, whether it’s a commercial or residential system, and so on. What Does the Interconnection Process Involve? The interconnection process involves 3 steps: application, installation, approval. It’s during the...

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What Is Industrial Solar?

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your industrial solar bonding needs. What Is Industrial & Commercial Solar? Solar systems are an increasingly common sight on the rooftops of commercial and industrial buildings or ground-mounted adjacent to the buildings served by the electricity they generate, but what is industrial solar? These solar systems operate in the same manner as residential solar installations, but on a larger scale. The panels used in an industrial system are bigger, and there are more of them, covering an expansive area. Most industrial solar systems are connected to the local electric grid, which allows a company to export its excess electricity to the grid. In exchange, the company receives credits that can be used to lower or eliminate the monthly bill from the local electric company. Sizing and Positioning of Industrial Solar Systems The amount of energy generated by any solar system is measured in kilowatt-hours per square meter per day and is heavily dependent on the location’s peak sun hours, which can range from...

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How to use Solar Energy in Agriculture

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your solar bond needs. How to use Solar Energy in Agriculture Family farms and large industrial-scale agricultural enterprises increasingly are turning to solar-generated electricity to power irrigation, greenhouses, heating and cooling of buildings housing livestock, dairy operations, drying of produce, refrigeration, and other processes. Read on to find out how to use solar energy in agriculture and how it benefits the industry. Benefits of Using Solar Energy in Agriculture Farmers and agricultural land managers benefit in many less obvious ways from using solar energy.  For example: Agricultural operations can gain an additional income stream by connecting their solar installations to the gris and selling excess solar-generated power to the local utility company. High-value, shade-tolerant crops and pollinator-friendly plant species can be grown beneath solar panels, adding to crop diversity and improving agricultural yields through increased pollination. There is the potential to reduce water use and extend growing seasons through solar-powered irrigation systems. And crops grown beneath solar panels require less water than those...

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Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) Acts

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bonding needs. What Is the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) Act? The Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program (RRIF) act was first established as part of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century of 1998, and has been revised several times since then. Most recent changes were the result of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015. The RRIF program authorizes the Department of Transportation to make direct loans and guarantee loans up to $35 billion for the development of railroad infrastructure. Between 1998 and 2015, RRIF loans totaled only about $2.7 billion, and no loan guarantees were made. Consequently, the FAST Act included a number of changes intended to increase utilization of the RRIF program to improve railroad infrastructure. RRIF financing can be used for a number of railroad infrastructure development purposes, such as buying, improving, and upgrading rail equipment or facilities, developing new intermodal or railroad facilities, refinancing outstanding loans for railroad infrastructure projects, and...

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Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Private Activity Bonds

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bonding needs. What Is the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act? The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into Law in November 2021, authorized $550 billion in new spending over the next few years on a variety of infrastructure projects. Much of that spending will be at the state and local levels. In addition to authorizing an historic investment in infrastructure, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act encourages public/private partnerships (P3s) to sponsor infrastructure projects and amends some rules regarding the use of private activity bonds to finance them. What Are Private Activity Bonds? Private activity bonds are debt instruments issued by state or municipal governments to help finance construction projects sponsored by public and/or private entities for the benefit of the public. These are financial instruments to attract private sector investment, not to be confused with surety bonds. Investors who buy private activity bonds are lending money to a state or municipal entity and earn interest on their investment,...

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