Virginia Economic Review

When a naval ship is at sea, dozens of critical electronic systems onboard need to operate perfectly, or missions and lives could be in jeopardy. Those systems require consistent power to operate, but the power provided by the ship’s generators is often unreliable.

April Wade is executive director of the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium (VNEC), which represents stakeholders invested in research and development, workforce development, innovation, and advocacy for the nuclear energy industry.

Will Payne is managing partner of economic development firm Coalfield Strategies, the director of InvestSWVA, a public-private partnership aimed at attracting companies to the western portion of Virginia, and an adviser to the Energy DELTA Lab research and development facility in Wise County.

Bob Blue is chair, president, and CEO of Dominion Energy, Inc., an integrated energy utility headquartered in Richmond that operates in 15 states and provides energy to 7 million customers.

According to the U.S.

Transformers are an essential component for maintaining the national electric grid and ensuring continuous power in regions affected by aging components and sensitivity to storms and natural disasters.

His hair and mustache grayed, 74-year-old Mike Quillen is no longer flexible enough to regularly walk the mines of Southwest Virginia, where he started a career that saw him build a company that became the sixth-largest coal supplier in the world — although he does plan to be underground for his 75th birthday.

CVOW — or “sea” and “vow,” if you will — is a fitting acronym for a transformational offshore wind farm. CVOW, or the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, has been in the planning stages for years by Dominion Energy, a state-regulated public electric utility company.

The best way to conceptualize Virginia’s energy ambitions is to look to its past of supporting one of the most power-intensive industries in existence.

After passage of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) three years ago got the ball rolling toward a cleaner, more productive energy future, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s 2022 Energy Plan has the Commonwealth poised to meet significant needs in the future.

Maj. Gen. Ted Mercer is the new CEO and executive director of Virginia Space, the owner and operator of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), collocated at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

COVID-19 has underscored the value of businesses embracing digital technologies in the healthcare space — from telehealth and remote patient monitoring to artificial intelligence (AI) for predictive analytics and diagnostic insights.

In recent years, the increased amount of available data — 64.2 zettabytes (equal to 1 trillion gigabytes) were created globally in 2020, compared to 2 zettabytes in 2010, according to Statista — and ways to analyze and use it have escalated the demand for data science professionals to fill data analyst, business intelligence engineer, and other roles.

E-commerce became the lifeblood of retailers and business-to-business (B2B) suppliers in 2020, yet the innovation that grew out of this need has disrupted industry norms forever. Research from the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and McKinsey & Co.

After a year of focusing on operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, data center investments are on the rise, with an eye on expanding capacity to meet pandemic-influenced changes in consumer behavior.

Consumers’ increasing demand for safe, sustainable, locally grown food is driving interest and investment in controlled-environment agriculture (CEA).

Across the wireless industry, 5G — the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks, meant to deliver higher data speeds, lower latency, more reliability, and higher capacity — has been not just the next big thing, but a family of next big things.

Technological advancements, supply chain disruptions, and safety, environmental, and other sociopolitical factors are changing the way people and products move around the country. Manufacturers are leveraging technology, new business models, and infrastructure improvements to chart a future path.