Energy Business
Molly Glick
Molly Glick
Energy Central Team
·Posted in Energy Business
Thu, Apr 23

NEWS: What we’re watching within the data center whirlwind 💨

  • The hardware demand: In Q1, GE Vernova’s electrification orders hit $7.1B, with data center demand alone surpassing all orders for the previous year. Its gas turbine backlog, meanwhile, swelled to 100 GW (it’s forecast to hit 110 GW by year-end).

  • The load: Virginia’s Data Center Alley has a fierce new competitor. In Houston, CenterPoint Energy is expecting to energize 8 GW of data center load by 2029, with an additional 4.2 GW soon after. Houston is no longer an “emerging destination” for hyperscalers—it’s a “firmly established” one, CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells said.

  • The friction: Local government meetings on data centers jumped from under 1% in early 2023 to nearly 10% by last month, per new research analyzing nearly 150K municipal transcripts. The mismatch: Local officials view the projects favorably, but residents overwhelmingly dominate the opposition.

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