.jpg)
Will add to eight previously acquired.
US utility company Duke Energy has acquired 11 natural gas turbines from GE Vernova to address growing demand from the data center and manufacturing sectors.
The agreement will see the deployment of GE Vernova’s 7HA gas turbines. The turbines come in three models; 7HA.01 at 290MW, 7HA.02 at 384MW, and 7HA.03 at 430MW. The companies did not disclose what models will be supplied as part of the agreement.
“As we continue to experience unprecedented growth in our service territories, securing the necessary materials to build critical infrastructure and meet the energy demand is integral to delivering value for our customers and other stakeholders,” said Duke Energy president and CEO Harry Sideris. “We value our collaboration with forward-thinking partners who assist us in advancing our energy modernization strategy.”
The 11 new turbines will add to eight the power company secured earlier this year. According to Duke the acquisition was made in line with its current business strategy to meet “the most robust growth scenarios in the future.”
Duke Energy is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and owns 54.8GW of baseload and peak generation in the US. It serves 8.4 million customers across six US states, including Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, North and South Carolina, and Florida. It also has subsidiaries in Puerto Rico and Argentina.
In its Q3 2024 earnings report, the firm reported that it had signed agreements to connect 2GW of new data center capacity across its footprint. Following up from this, in its Q4 earnings report, the company announced a $83 billion five-year spending plan to help meet the soaring demand from data centers. In the call, former CEO Lynn Good revealed that data centers now account for half of the company’s pipeline for 2029.
GE Vernova is becoming an increasingly crucial player as utilities and data center developers scramble for available and dispatchable power. According to GE Vernova, the agreement was made possible due to the expansion of its Greenville production facility in South Carolina. The expansion is part of a broader $600 million investment into the US manufacturing sector over the next two years.
“This arrangement with Duke Energy and the significant expansion of our U.S. manufacturing facilities illustrate our ability and commitment to developing innovative solutions that our customers require to meet today and tomorrow’s energy demands,” said Scott Strazik, CEO, GE Vernova.
The turbine manufacturer has already signed several supply agreements with utilities and data center customers in 2025.
These include an agreement with NRG Energy to supply up to 5.4GW of natural gas generation across four projects in the ERCOT market, and a supply agreement with NextEra Energy to deploy gas turbines to meet increased demand from the data center market.
Despite the increased volume of deals there are fears that the gas turbine supply chain will be unable to keep up with the exponential demand forecasted from the global data center market. According to a recent report from CTVC, gas turbine manufacturers are struggling to meet the surging demand, with delivery backlogs beginning to stretch past 2029.
The gas turbine market is consolidated between three companies - GE Vernova, Siemens, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - who produce the vast majority of global turbines. However, rather than pushing for aggressive expansion, the firms have increasingly begun to limit investments in an attempt to reduce risks of overexposure if the projected demand from the data center market fails to come to fruition.
