Most trend stories make you squint. Not this one.

In our sample of 4,216 SCA solicitations from 2013 through 2026, boiler packages ran between 18 and 22 a year from 2016 through 2019, all but vanished in 2020, came back at 17 in 2021, and peaked at 30 in 2022 — then the cliff: 7 in 2023, 3 in 2024, 2 in 2025, and none so far in 2026.

“A twenty-package-a-year market didn't shrink. It stopped.”

A twenty-package-a-year market didn't shrink. It stopped.

The same dataset shows the successor pulling up to the curb. Titles referencing heat pumps and electrification — nowhere on the board for the sample's entire first decade — first surface in 2023 and arrive in numbers from 2024: 12 packages that year, 5 in 2025, and 7 so far in 2026, including packages tagged DCAS ELECTRIFICATION that bundle heat pump systems with electrical service upgrades, flood elimination, and fire alarm work. Roughly two dozen packages in all — small next to the old boiler volume, but there's no mistaking the direction.

Now, the policy backdrop has a name: Leading the Charge — the $4 billion program announced in October 2022 under which DCAS funds and the SCA builds the conversion of existing schools from fossil-fuel boilers to all-electric heat-pump systems. The targets: 100 existing schools started or completed by 2030, seeded with $520 million for the first 19 buildings — alongside a commitment that every new SCA school is all-electric and that heating oil No. 4 is out of schools by 2026. The city calls it its single biggest move toward Local Law 97's mandated 50 percent emissions cut for government operations by 2030. So no, the SCA didn't lose interest in heating schools. The city changed what heating a school means.

Right now the electrification packages are a trickle next to the old boiler volume — and here's the thing, that's exactly the point. New York's school buildings still need their heating plants replaced on the same aging schedule as before. The demand didn't vanish with the boiler line; it's queuing behind a new scope. When that queue opens — and a 1,400-building portfolio guarantees it must — the packages will look like the early DCAS-tagged ones: heat pumps married to electrical service upgrades, controls, and envelope work. Not a boiler swap with a new nameplate.

That reshuffles who's positioned to win. The classic boiler-replacement bidder was a plumbing-and-heating house. The electrification package tilts toward mechanical contractors comfortable with heat pump systems, and electrical contractors, who move from a supporting trade to the center of the scope — in an old building, the service upgrade is the gating item. The HVAC firm that adds heat-pump design-assist capability and a strong electrical partner now is buying position in a market that hasn't priced itself yet.

So if boiler replacement was your SCA bread and butter, the data's telling you the loaf is gone — retool, or follow the fossil work to agencies and private stock still running the old cycle. If you're electrical or mechanical with heat pump chops, watch for the DCAS-tagged packages: the early jobs in a new program are where an agency learns which contractors it trusts, and that shortlist is getting written now, while the volume is small. Either way, treat every electrification package title as a syllabus — the scopes bundled into those early jobs are the template the next decade of school mechanical work gets bid from.

What this means for you: this trend is drawn from more than 4,200 SCA solicitations posted since 2013 — enough history to trust the direction, even though it isn't a complete registry and small year-to-year counts should be read as directional, not exact. If boiler work has been your bread and butter, the message isn't 'wait it out' — it's retool now, because 2026 has produced zero boiler packages so far. Program facts on the electrification push come from the city's own Leading the Charge announcement, linked below.

This closes the SCA chapter of Agency Bid Patterns. Next agency on the desk: DASNY — same lens, different calendar, different economy.