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Data Centres: Boom and Backlash
26APR

GE Vernova gas backlog hits 80 GW into 2029

3 min read
09:44UTC

GE Vernova's gas-turbine backlog reached 80 GW in December 2025, with deliveries booked into 2029 and reservations on track to sell out through 2030 by year-end.

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Key takeaway

An 80 GW gas-turbine backlog locks hyperscaler power decisions into the 2050s, well past every published net-zero milestone.

GE Vernova's gas-turbine backlog reached 80 GW in December 2025, with deliveries booked into 2029 and reservations on track to sell out through 2030 by year-end. 1 The IEA projects that 15 to 27 GW of onsite natural gas will power US data centres by 2030, principally because grid interconnection cannot absorb load on operators' required timescales. 2

GE Vernova is the power-generation business spun out of General Electric in April 2024, the largest Western manufacturer of utility-scale gas turbines and a primary supplier to the US, European and Gulf gas-fleet build-outs. An 80 GW backlog is roughly equivalent to the entire installed gas-fired capacity of Spain plus Italy combined. The order book is dominated by aero-derivative and heavy-duty F-class machines in the 50-450 MW range, the formats hyperscalers buy for behind-the-meter campuses.

The 2029 delivery date is the operative figure. A turbine ordered today will not produce its first megawatt until late this decade, and once commissioned will run on a depreciation schedule into the 2050s. Hyperscalers signing those contracts now are committing to fossil generation that lasts well past every published net-zero milestone. The 15-27 GW IEA range is the agency's own central scenario for US data centre on-site gas in 2030, conditional on the grid bottleneck persisting at roughly its current severity.

GE Vernova can scale a turbine production line in eighteen months. A 765 kV transmission upgrade in PJM or ERCOT runs five to ten years from preliminary application to energisation, longer in the Northeast. The mismatch is what generates the BTM gas pipeline; turbine factories are answering hyperscaler demand at the speed of capital while public transmission planning runs at the speed of permitting. GE Vernova's 80 GW number is the cleanest single metric for that asymmetry on public record.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

GE Vernova is one of the world's main manufacturers of natural gas power generation equipment, the turbines that turn gas into electricity. By December 2025, it had orders and reservations for 80 GW of turbines, equivalent to about twice the UK's total electricity generating capacity. All its delivery slots are full into 2029. This matters because data centre operators who cannot get a grid connection are trying to build their own gas power stations instead, and now they cannot easily get the turbines either. The IEA expects 15 to 27 GW of this onsite gas to be powering US data centres by 2030. That is roughly the same as adding all of Australia's electricity generation, fuelled entirely by natural gas, to serve one sector.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Large-frame gas turbine manufacturing requires specialised castings, high-temperature alloys, and precision rotating components that take 18-24 months to produce per unit. GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi, and their peers cannot rapidly expand production; new manufacturing lines require five to seven years and multi-billion dollar capital commitments that no single manufacturer can justify on the basis of a demand spike they expect to moderate.

The demand spike itself is driven by the combination of BTM data centre orders and legitimate grid-decarbonisation gas peaker replacements, two entirely different demand pools competing for the same factory output. Transmission grid operators in the US and Europe are simultaneously ordering peakers and fast-response units for grid balancing, compressing turbine availability further.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    Operators who did not reserve GE Vernova turbines before the backlog closed in late 2025 face a choice between multi-year waits, spot-price premiums of 15-25%, or switching to alternative manufacturers with different performance profiles.

  • Opportunity

    Siemens Energy and Mitsubishi Power, with smaller installed base relationships with data centre operators, stand to capture disproportionate order share in 2026-2027 as GE Vernova delivery slots close.

Sources:International Energy Agency·Data Center Frontier
Mentions:International Energy Agency →Spain →Microsoft →hyperscale →Google →Italy →Amazon →ERCOT →GE Vernova →SemiAnalysis →Uptime Institute →behind-the-meter →
First Reported In

Update #1 · Boom hits wall: grid says no, states freeze

International Energy Agency· 26 Apr 2026
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Causes and effects
This Event
GE Vernova gas backlog hits 80 GW into 2029
Equipment manufacturers are moving faster than transmission planners; the IEA expects 15-27 GW of US data centre load on private gas by 2030.
Led to
xAI wins 41 gas turbines for Colossus
GE Vernova's 80 GW backlog and the IEA's 15-27 GW onsite gas projection are a direct economic consequence of operators ordering BTM gas at scale to bypass grid queues.
Occurred 1 Mar 2026
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