26 Unattributed quote The need for reliable base load power has seen a return to gas-powered generation around the key gas hubs of Texas and Louisiana, with Entergy adding 2.2GW of gas plants for Meta’s Louisiana Hyperion campus, planned to scale up to 5GW, and with Open AI/Soft Bank’s Stargate project in Texas expected to rely mainly on gas. As a result, after demand for gas turbines collapsed from 400 units per year to 110 units after the 2011 dash to switch from coal to gas in the US, this year global orders have shot up to 1,025 units, with 46% of sales to the US vs 29% historically. Large unit orders have increased 50% vs the 10-year average. Manufacturing is concentrated around three main suppliers. GE Vernova and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, who have seen orders almost double from 40GW (2021- Gas bounces back 2023) to 70GW (2024-2026), and Siemens, who recently quoted US orders jumping from one unit years ago to closer to 200 today! Most order books are now full for the next five years with delivery times as long as seven years. Investment in the research and design of gas turbines by the “big three” has seen efficiency improve by 64%. China has recognized it cannot catch up with this technology, so has focused on renewables and in the short term has filled its base load gap with coal, which is why China’s share of gas in power will remain no more than 3%. The bottlenecks in supply are significantly impacting Asia (and consequently the demand for LNG). The cost of gas turbines has tripled over the last few years and, with the high cost of LNG (peaking at $75/mmbtu), has seen the levelized cost of electricity from gas increase, forcing emerging economies to rethink their energy strategies as China has flooded the market with cheap renewables. Vietnam will miss its 2030 target of increasing its gas generated power from 1.6GW to 22.3GW, with just one project having secured a gas turbine. In the need to fill the energy gap renewables may leapfrog gas. Building Infrastructure at Scale and Pace If we don’t change our approach to electricity pricing, the price of electricity will become what gasoline once was — the metric everyone knows, the issue every politician runs on. And if we’re not careful, that backlash will come fast.