Jefferies put out a research note this week with a line buried in the analysis that should offer some hope to IPPs and utilities who have been looking for gas turbines:
“We see a clear extension in behind-the-meter duration but an eventual pivot to front-of-the-meter will create a secondary market for BTM equipment. We also see behind-the-meter over-indexed to potential weakness in end-demand. If we see weakness in demand, expect the behind-the-meter market to be impacted first.”
Jefferies — one of the most respected equity research shops covering this space — is already flagging a secondary market forming for gas turbine equipment that was ordered for projects that may never get built as planned.
The headline from the Jefferies note is that gas turbine supply is increasing 80% by 2030, with global production capacity hitting 125+ GW annually. Behind-the-meter systems — the smaller, faster-to-deploy machines — are about 65% booked for 2028 and only 33% booked for 2029. That’s a lot of available iron. Jefferies projects at least 19 GW of available equipment capacity by 2028 and 76 GW by 2030. The large frame turbines — your GE Vernova HA-class machines — are 90%+ booked through 2028. But behind the meter? Increasingly available.
Hyperscalers are shifting toward grid-connected power.
- They want five nines reliability that islanded generation can’t consistently deliver.
- They don’t want the balance sheet exposure of being a solo offtaker.
- And their climate commitments make 24/7 behind-the-fence gas a harder story to tell every quarter.
Meanwhile, 30–50% of the 2026 data center pipeline may not come online this year. Every delayed project is a turbine order at risk.
The result? A potential perfect storm for gas turbine price deflation in a market everyone still thinks is supply-constrained.
