A 7HA.03 gas turbine leaving Greenville, South Carolina.
Although only about 20% of global energy comes from electricity today, some market analysts expect that its proportion of the energy mix will go up to 30% by 2050.
This surging demand for electricity is driven by many factors including industrialization, advanced manufacturing, deployment of data centers for AI, and the electrification of buildings and transport. To meet this demand, it is urgent that grid infrastructure be upgraded and modernized.
“We see this as the emergence of an investment super cycle that parallels other multi-decade cycles such as globalization or the advent of the Internet,” says Scott Strazik, CEO and President, GE Vernova.
In support of this, he cites recent International Energy Agency (IEA) research report that Data Centers worldwide are expected to consume double the amount of electricity by 2030 and triple by 2035 compared to 2024. AI will be a significant cause of electricity demand at unprecedented levels.
Strazik notes that customers are using GE Vernova equipment to generate 25% of the world’s electricity (nearly 50% in the United States). He believes that no single power source will provide the bulk of this power. It must be a mix across gas power, nuclear, wind, hydro, solar and storage, complemented by big investments in the grid and software.
GE Vernova is cashing in
• Saudi Arabia is transitioning from heavy fuel oil, where GE Vernova secured more than $14 billion of commitments in 2025.
• In 2025, new gas equipment contracts were signed in Mexico to build on the company’s large installed base in the country.
• Vernova secured strong HA gas turbine orders in Malaysia, Poland, Mexico, and Kuwait – with fast growing grid equipment orders in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, and Germany.
• Growing momentum for nuclear plants in North America, Poland, Sweden, and Finland. This includes the deployment of a small modular reactor (SMR) at the Darlington site in Ontario, Canada, which has begun construction.
• In late 2025, GE Vernova announced a Memo of Understanding with the U.S. and Japanese governments to develop SMRs worth up to $100 billion.
Gas Boom
GE Vernova maintains an installed base of over 7,000 gas turbines. Strazik noted that gas power offers an ideal balance of speed, cost, performance, and scale, and that it is in high demand. In Australia, gas power is critical in balancing the grid as renewable energy penetration grows rapidly. It also complements the demand profile needed for data centers.
“On a per-gigawatt basis, the biggest costs for data centers will be for the chips and the power generation and electrical equipment, each at a premium relative to other building costs,” he said. “The buildout of data centers will be a significant driver of gas turbine demand moving forward, and GE Vernova will offer substantial value to these customers who need electrons at unprecedented speed and scale.”
Part of the company’s strategy is to provide bridging power solutions today, while they wait for heavy duty gas turbines, SMRs, and carbon capture solutions (which might extend into the next decade).
Meanwhile, the company’s order backlog grew over 25% to $150 billion, up $31 billion in 2025 alone. It is reinvesting in its core business such as the acquisition of Woodward’s combustion parts business to scale its Gas Power supply chain buildout. It is investing $11 billion in capex and R&D from 2025 through 2028 and hired over 1,500 incremental production workers across the U.S. in its Power and Electrification segments to grow capacity.
In its Greenville, SC, turbine manufacturing hub, it installed over two hundred new machines in 2025 and will invest in two hundred more in 2026. In Southeast Asia, $20 million will be used to develop repair capabilities for HA gas turbines.
Further GE Vernova News
• The company is involved in the modernization of InterGen’s 800MW Coryton Power Plant in the UK with two high efficiency upgrades on GT26 gas turbines. The project delivered 85 MW of more capacity, a 2.46% efficiency gain, and is expected to reduce CO₂ emissions.
• GE Vernova announced the start of commercial operation of PetroVietnam Power Corporation (PV Power)’s Nhon Trach 3&4 1.6 GW Power Plant in Ong Keo Industrial Park in the Dai Phuoc commune, about 70 kilometers southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. They were built by Samsung C&T and Lilama and are powered by LNG. This new 9HA.02 combined cycle power plant is expected to improve the reliability and stability of the energy grid to support renewables penetration.
• Vernova received an order from Enea for two of its 9HA.01 gas turbine combined cycle blocks to support gradual replacement of coal-fired power generation produced at Kozienice station in Poland.
The new plant is expected to generate a lower emissions impact, with up to 60% fewer emissions compared to other plants of the same size. For the Kozienice power plant, GE Vernova is expected to provide two blocks, each including a 9HA.01 gas turbine, an STF-D650 steam turbine, a W88 generator, integrated Mark* VIe Distributed Control System (DCS) and a three-pressure level with reheat Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG).
The steam turbine and the generator will be manufactured locally in Poland, in GE Vernova’s factories in Elblag and in Wroclaw, respectively, while the gas turbine will be made at GE Vernova’s Manufacturing Excellence Center in Belfort, France.
