The gas turbine industry is seeing a crunch, with demand from new data center builds far outpacing supply.
Despite best efforts to ramp up manufacturing, wait times for gas turbines are still incredibly long. From some manufacturers, backlogs stretch as long as seven years.
A small chunk of demand is coming from replacing aging facilities, but the vast majority is from data centers. For example, Siemens Energy North America has seen 14 GW worth of orders so far this fiscal year, with 65% of that coming from data centers.
Some manufacturers are trying hard to fix the problem:
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is doubling manufacturing capacity over the next two years.
- GE Vernova is investing $41 million in manufacturing of its H65 and H84 generators, used in its HA gas turbines.
- Siemens Energy is adding 61,000 square feet to one of its blade and vanes manufacturing facilities
Will it be enough? Likely not. According to experts at the Electric Power Research Institute, one manufacturer doubling production might increase overall output by 15-40%. While this will help in the long run, it’s unlikely to actually reduce wait times for customers.
