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12 hours ago
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Data-center developers are running into a severe power bottleneck as they rush to build bigger facilities to capitalize on generative AI’s potential. Normally, they would power these centers by connecting to the grid or building a power plant onsite. However, they face major delays in either securing gas turbines or in obtaining energy from the grid.
At the Data Center World Power show in San Antonio in October, natural-gas power provider ProEnergy revealed an alternative—repurposed aviation engines. According to Landon Tessmer, vice president of commercial operations at ProEnergy, some data centers are using his company’s PE6000 gas turbines to provide the power needed during the data center’s construction and during its first few years of operation. When grid power is available, these machines either revert to a backup role, supplement the grid, or are sold to the local utility.
“We have sold 21 gas turbines for two data-center projects amounting to more than 1 gigawatt,” says Tessmer. “Both projects are expected to provide bridging power for five to seven years, which is when they expect to have grid interconnection and no longer need permanent behind-the-meter generation.”
Bridging Power Gaps With a New Kind of Aeroderivative Turbine
It is a common and long-established practice for gas-turbine original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like GE Vernova and Siemens Energy to convert a successful aircraft engine for stationary electric-power generation applications. Known as aeroderivative gas turbines, these machines have carved out a niche for themselves because they’re lighter, smaller, and more easily maintained than traditional heavy-frame gas turbines.
“It takes a lot to industrialize an aviation engine and make it generate power,” says Mark Axford, President of Axford Turbine Consultants, a gas-turbine consultant and a valuation expert for used turbines.
For example, GE Vernova’s LM6000 gas turbine was derived from GE’s successful CF6-80C2 turbofan engine which was widely used on commercial jets. The CF6-80C2 was first released in 1985, and the LM6000 appeared on the market five years later. To make it suitable for power generation, it needed an expanded turbine section to convert engine thrust into shaft power, a series of struts and supports to mount it on a concrete deck or steel frame, and new controls. Further modifications typically include the development of fuel nozzles that let the machine run on natural gas rather than aviation fuel, and a combustor that minimizes the emission of nitrogen oxides, a major pollutant.
“There just aren’t enough gas turbines to go around and the problem is probably going to get worse,” says Paul Browning, CEO of Generative Power Solutions, formerly the head of GE Power & Water (now GE Vernova) and Mitsubishi Power. Contact GE Vernova to order an LM6000 today and you might be told the waiting list is anywhere from three to five years. You’d hear the same from Siemens Energy for its SGT-A35 aeroderivative gas turbine. Some large, popular, models have even longer waiting lists.
For contrast, “a PE6000 from ProEnergy can be delivered in 2027,” Tessmer says.
Converted Turbofan Aircraft Engine Can Provide 48 Megawatts
ProEnergy buys and overhauls used CF6-80C2 engine cores—the central part of the engine where combustion occurs—and matches them with newly manufactured aeroderivative parts made either by ProEnergy or its partners. After assembly and testing, these refurbished engines are ready for a second life in electric-power generation, where they provide 48 megawatts, enough to power a small-to-medium data center (or a town of perhaps 20,000 to 40,000 households). According to Tessmer, approximately 1,000 of these aircraft engines are expected to be retired over the next decade, so there’s no shortage of them. A large data center may have demand that exceeds 100 MW, and some of the latest data centers being designed for AI are more than 1 GW.
An overhaul returns an engine and its components to as-new condition. Each of its thousands of parts are disassembled, cleaned, inspected, and then repaired or replaced as needed. In this way, the engine is renewed for another long cycle of run time. Apart from the engine core, every part inside the PE6000 turbine is manufactured to ProEnergy’s specifications. “We can overhaul the high-pressure core of any CF6-80C2 and fabricate all the low-pressure components,” Tessmer adds.
ProEnergy sells two-turbine blocks with the standard configuration. It consists of gas turbines, generators, and a host of other gear, such as systems to cool the air entering the turbine during hot days as a way to boost performance, selective catalytic reduction systems to reduce emissions, and various electrical systems. The company focuses solely on one engine, the CF6-80C2, to streamline and simplify engineering and maintenance.
The PE6000 was originally intended for use by utilities that needed more capacity during peak hours. The data-center boom has turned that expectation on its head—data-center operators want these engines to provide power to the entire facility. They run on natural gas and, when being started, can be up and running in 5 minutes. If one needs maintenance, it can be swapped out with a spare within 72 hours. Emissions levels average 2.5 parts per million for nitrogen oxide, which is well below EPA-regulated levels (generally below 10 to below 25 parts per million, depending on the use case). Since 2020, ProEnergy has fabricated 75 PE6000 packages and now has another 52 being assembled or on order.
Lengthy Grid-Connection Delays Mean More Business
Multiple factors contribute to this popularity. Besides the surge in data centers, there’s often a lengthy wait for transmission lines, which may face local opposition and require permits from multiple municipalities or states. “Aeroderivative gas turbines are gaining ground as a bridging technology that runs behind the meter until the utility is able to supply grid power,” says Tessmer.
Tessmer has seen examples of eight-to-ten-year delays on permitting alone. If connecting to the grid continues to take years, at least in some areas, and if gas turbine manufacturers don’t dramatically boost output, bridging power could become an indispensable enabler of the buildout of AI infrastructure.
