The gas turbine market for electrical generation has been and will continue to be stable barring any unforeseen circumstances, such as the 2020 pandemic, that affected many markets. That said, the major players such as Siemens Energy, Mitsubishi Power, and GE Vernova still hold the majority of the market value. Major trends will likely not affect turbine production itself, as production rates remain stable for now. Forces like hydrogen use, digitalization, and renewable energy have the potential to be market-altering, but to what degree is uncertain.

Gas turbines offer a promising avenue for decarbonization through their adaptability to hydrogen fuel. However, the transition involves significant challenges, including:

While existing turbines can be retrofitted with hydrogen-compatible burners, the combustion characteristics of hydrogen differ significantly from natural gas, necessitating modifications to ensure efficient and stable operation. The economic viability of hydrogen-fueled gas turbines is also influenced by the initial investment in retrofitting or purchasing new units, in addition to the cost of hydrogen itself. Transporting hydrogen will be a factor as well, either pipelines or an on-site hydrogen production facility will be necessary. Digitalization also has a role in the future of gas turbine technology.

The integration of digital technologies is revolutionizing the operation and maintenance of gas turbines. Utilizing sensors, data analytics, and artificial intelligence, operators can gain valuable insights into turbine performance and health. Predictive maintenance algorithms can anticipate potential failures, allowing for proactive maintenance and minimizing downtime.

Digitalization also enables remote monitoring and control, reducing the need for onsite personnel and improving operational efficiency. Furthermore, digital twin technologies can create virtual replicas of gas turbines, providing a platform for testing different operating conditions and optimizing performance. Gas turbines can also be leveraged for use in conjunction with renewable resources.

Hybrid systems—gas turbines combined with renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power—offer a powerful solution to address the challenges associated with energy production. These systems leverage the complementary strengths of both technologies, providing reliable baseload power from gas turbines and intermittent clean energy from renewable sources.

reduce reliance on fossil fuels, contributing to a cleaner energy future 

What does all this mean? Gas turbines have the potential to gain even more popularity than currently, but will that offset the unused capacity already installed worldwide? The Irsching Power Station in Germany, for example, is reportedly running only one out of three units at the plant. Hydrogen, too, has its opponents: A recent report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis suggests that hydrogen might not be the best way forward for gas turbines.

Therefore, balancing the potential gain in popularity among energy companies and the public with the unknowns of hydrogen’s future in this market and the issue that many turbines are not being fully utilized translates to a stable market in this analyst’s eyes. No massive swings in the market are foreseen at this time.

, the value of the gas turbine market for electrical power generation will remain stable moving forward. The most popular turbines will fall in the 250 - 500 MW output range (

), with GE Vernova, Siemens Energy, and Mitsubishi Power holding the position of top-three manufacturers (

As an example of the current stable market, Forecast International’s (FI) Industrial & Marine Gas Turbine Installations Database lists 105 SGT5/6- 8000H turbines ordered, with most being installed now. Installations, and therefore orders (FI lists install years as orders are announced), are at about two to five per year. This has not changed significantly since 2018 when many of Siemens Energy’s machines were installed worldwide. This trend extends to other models.

In conclusion, gas turbines will have a place in the future of power generation. Hydrogen and other technologies, although promising, will not likely affect overall production, as current machines can be utilized instead of installing new capacity, and the future of these technologies remains to be seen.

Carter Palmer is an Industrial & Marine Turbine Analyst at Forecast International, a provider of market intelligence forecasting, proprietary research, and consulting services for the aerospace, defense, and power systems industries.

The gas turbine market is stable and will remain so among factors such as hydrogen, digitalization, and renewable energy.

Worldwide Gas Turbine Forecast 2025

This spring, near the end of a momentous term, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a four-decade-old bedrock regulatory precedent that granted deference to subject-matter experts at regulatory agencies.

In deciding Ohio v. E.P.A., the high court upended the process by which future, and potentially past, regulations would be determined for energy, the environment, vehicle safety, and food and drug safety—indeed the broader economy. The overturned case was one of the most-cited cases in federal regulatory law: Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

Well before the high court’s July 1 ruling, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had repeatedly vowed to reverse, block, or at least defund many if not most of President Joe Biden’s energy and environmental initiatives. The Republican National Committee platform, adopted in July, included planks calling for the abolition of the electric vehicle (EV) “mandate,” cutting burdensome regulations, and “making America the dominant energy producer in the world, by far.”

Then, over the summer, as Biden’s support fell apart, he bowed out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate to succeed him, creating a completely different electoral dynamic for November.

The results of the November elections—for the presidency, one-third of the Senate, and all 435 members of the House of Representatives—will likely have an outsize impact on companies that own and operate electrical generation assets in the United States as well as those who build or service those generators.

However the elections conclude, events in the months preceding them should give pause to those who thought the United States was on a one-way trip to a carbon-free electric future:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ohio v. E.P.A. overturned a 40-year-old precedent in which experts in regulatory agencies were granted deference in crafting regulations when Congressional intent was ambiguous or unclear.

FirstEnergy became the latest electric utility to delay the planned retirement of coal-fired generators, joining PacifiCorp, WEC Energy Group, Alliant Energy, Dominion, Santee Cooper, Omaha Public Power District, and Evergy. The list may grow longer as utilities grapple with the soaring electric demand growth coming from data centers, particularly those powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Google, Microsoft, and other tech companies disclosed that they no longer were on a net-zero trajectory, as the energy consumption of their data centers effectively erased years of their use of renewable electricity.

 emissions grew in the developing world more than offsetting reductions in developed economies.

In a highly unusual move, the Supreme Court stayed the EPA's "Good Neighbor Rule" on air emissions, even as it was still being litigated by the lower courts.

2023 went down in the record books as the hottest in recorded history, and 2024 appeared on track to break that record. Extreme weather events—fueled, experts say, by global warming—are becoming more extreme, more frequent, more destructive, and more expensive.

The Texas grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) estimated there was a 12% probability of rolling blackouts this summer, as dramatically faster electric demand growth coupled with a shortfall of dispatchable generation caused the agency to question its own ability to provide reliable electricity to Texans.

Biden’s EPA finalized a suite of Clean Air Act regulations, sure to be challenged by Republicans, sharply lowering emission standards from existing coal-fired power plants as well as future gas-fired generators. A separate rule, covering emissions from existing gas-fired generators, is expected later this year. That, too, is expected to draw legal challenge.

Another executive-level agency, the Council on Environmental Quality, finalized changes to reform, update, and streamline the environmental review process in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), another foundational piece of federal environmental regulation. Again, this final rule is almost certain to be challenged by GOP attorneys general and other parties, regardless of how power is apportioned in Washington, D.C., in 2025.

Throughout the spring, Biden’s regulatory agencies worked to finalize rules on a wide variety of energy and environmental issues in the hope they could withstand challenge under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), a GOP-enacted measure that allows Congress to overturn any executive-agency regulation that was finalized within 60 legislative days of a presidential election. A majority vote in both houses is all that is needed to repeal any regulation enacted in the 11th hour of an outgoing presidential administration.

The key is legislative days, not calendar days. Congress was not in session for large chunks of June, July, and August, which moved the 60-day “lookback” date to as early as May 20, according to the Congress watchers at Arnold & Porter. 

George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center reported that federal agencies published 66 significant final rules in April, covering all manner of issues, higher than any month since the Reagan administration. 

So yes, it was a busy run-up to the November elections. And no matter what the outcome of the 2024 election, it looks like 2025 will be a busy one for the U.S. new-build power industry.

On taking office in 2021, President Biden confirmed his goal of cutting CO

 emissions to zero for the power sector by 2035 as a first step to decarbonizing the entire U.S. economy by 2050.

For the domestic new-build power generation industry, the rush to renewables was well underway years before Biden placed his hand on the Bible on Jan. 20, 2021. That trend continued during 2024. In the United States, about 71 renewable energy projects were completed through July, and another 200 were scheduled to begin construction during the remainder of 2024, according to data tracked by Industrial Info Resources (IIR). The value of those completed projects is about $11.6 billion while the value of the second-half projects is nearly $53 billion.

Looking forward to projects beginning construction during 2025 - 2029, IIR data shows only a slight slowdown in the rush to renewables: Approximately 91% of all power projects beginning construction during that time will be renewable, down slightly from earlier trends (

The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s commitment of $369 billion in federal funds to new-build renewable energy significantly strengthened the longstanding trend of heightened investment in new non-emitting electric generation. 

That longstanding trend has been buttressed not only by federal money but also by the growing competitiveness of renewable electric generation and state lawmakers’ and regulators’ pronounced preference for non-emitting generation.

An adjacent Biden policy initiative, to spur the sales of electric cars and trucks, may also significantly impact new-build generation. At press time, the EV initiative appeared to be falling short of initial estimates, but results vary from state to state. California is still expecting a jolt to electric demand from electric transportation, but other states seem to be scaling back expectations.

Electric car and truck sales are on track to number roughly one million units in 2024, down from 2023’s sales of 1.6 million units. The slower-than-expected uptake caused the administration to revise its timeline for new, stricter new vehicle tailpipe emissions.

Previously rosy projections of EV sales had caused many electric utilities to boost their planned capital expenditures (CAPEX) to cover bulking up their electric distribution system so that it would not be overly stressed when clusters of EV owners came home from work and recharged their vehicles at the same time.

Like many other assumptions about the power industry, the slow uptake of EVs is causing some utilities to rethink their planned higher CAPEX spending to strengthen and expand their distribution networks.

But offsetting this trend is the sharp growth in demand from data centers, particularly those equipped with AI. Several utilities with data center clusters in their service areas, such as Dominion, Georgia Power, American Electric Power, and Public Service Electric & Gas, have been forced to increase their projection of electric demand growth, and thus CAPEX to build new generation.

Some, but not all, of this new generation is slated to burn natural gas, but because many data center owners have signed sustainability commitments, IIR expects a good bit of this new generation will be renewables plus storage.

This year, electric reliability organizations, such as the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) and ERCOT, sounded alarms about whether electric generation will be sufficient to meet rising peak demand. Those concerns no doubt played into plans to dramatically increase new-generation construction projects in the United States.

Developers have sharply increased their planned construction kickoffs for all forms of generation for 2025 - 2029, according to data tracked by IIR. In analyzing prior five-year kickoff plans, data we tracked showed developers planned to begin construction of about 200 GW of new generation in the United States over successive five-year periods starting in 2011 (

But in recent years, those plans have sharply accelerated. In IIR’s most recent analysis of U.S. planned generation construction starts, covering 2025 - 2029, about 875 GW of new-build generation is scheduled to begin turning dirt, roughly four times the prior five-year period. This data includes all types of electric generation.

IIR does not expect all these planned generation projects will begin construction as slated. Many will be deferred, and some will be canceled outright. However, tracking power plant development suggests that many new projects will be added over the next five years.

Another factor influencing types of new-build generation construction is the continued influence of “sustainable” investing among institutional investors, pension funds, and other types of financial asset managers. A growing number of asset managers have pledged to abide by the U.N. Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), which rules out investing in new coal generators and frowns on new-build gas generation. Through March 31 of this year, organizations that managed over $128 trillion in funds have signed onto the UN PRI, continuing a yearslong rise (

In mid-2024, when FirstEnergy CEO Brian Tierney told the 

 the multistate utility holding company was abandoning the planned 2030 phaseout of coal-fired generation, he observed, “Some people think we were bad people for doing that. I think … we’re just honest.” 

FirstEnergy operates 10 electric distribution companies that provide electricity to six million customers in five states in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. It also operates two coal-fired power stations in West Virginia with about 3,082 MW of combined generating capacity.

FirstEnergy’s operating utilities operate in the PJM Interconnection, a power market that includes northern Virginia, the world’s largest data center hub. Electricity demand in the PJM region is one of the fastest growing in the country, the 

 reported, with the operator this year more than tripling its growth forecast for the next decade.

“When we were looking at emissions reduction, it was based on running our coal-fired power plants less at the end of the decade,” Tierney said. “We don’t see a pathway for that now.” 

He cited exceptionally strong electric demand growth, driven by existing and planned data centers in the Old Dominion state and elsewhere.

“The things that are bumping up against each other are people’s growing demand and desire for reliability, what’s affordable for most customers, and then what’s sustainable. It’s easier to make two of those three things congruent with one another. It’s harder to get all three solved at the same time,” Tierney told the 

Tierney’s not the only utility chief struggling to balance the energy trilemma: reliability, affordability, and sustainability. But forced to make a choice, it appears he is willing to sacrifice sustainability to deliver reliability and affordability.

Those who lead electric utilities hold electric reliability as a foundational, non-negotiable element of their mission. It’s the reason electric utilities exist. Everything else—safety, affordability, economic development, and, more recently, sustainability—comes after reliability. To meet soaring electric demand, they will use any and all resources at their disposal, starting with the most economical ones first.

As the cost of renewables has fallen steadily in recent years, utilities have embraced wind and solar. The hundreds of billions of dollars in federal support for renewables contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act didn’t hurt, but the embrace of wind and solar was well underway before that law was passed. 

Even as they embraced intermittent, non-emitting generation like wind and solar, some utility leaders did so grudgingly, mindful that the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine. But regulators supported renewables, and what regulators want, they usually get.

One other trend we noticed this year: More asset owners were deferring the planned closure of coal-fired generators. At the start of 2024, IIR tracked nearly 5 GW of planned retirements for U.S. coal-fired generators, but by midyear, that slipped to about 3 GW. It may fall faster in the last months of the year. 

We expect the decision to close, or defer closing, coal-fired generation may lead to questions from regulators, lawmakers, and consumer groups. If that comes to pass, we expect utility leaders to say, in effect, “Increased CO

 emissions were preferable to rolling blackouts.”

Since 2010, over 150 GW of U.S. coalfired generation has been retired, forced by tightening environmental regulations, increasingly competitive natural gas prices, and the declining cost of renewables. Looking out over the next five years, IIR is tracking the planned closure of about 56 GW of coal generation (

Presidential elections are typically important for the power industry, but few in recent memory stack up to the potential consequences of the 2024 election.

U.S. Power Industry Outlook 2025

The 2024 Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia (TPS), held Aug. 20 - 22 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, boasted over 4,500 attendees and more than 300 exhibitors. Organized by Texas A&M’s Turbomachinery Laboratory, attendees from over 50 countries gathered to hear engineers, directors, and managers discuss optimizing compressor anti-surge control systems, integrating CO

 capture plants, bottoming cycles, and more.

George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, TX. Credit: Adobe Stock

Presenters from Compressor Controls Corp. (CCC) and Petrobras hosted a paper presentation, 

Optimizing Compressors Anti-Surge Control

 to Reduce Power Consumption and Greenhouse Gases Emissions in Oil Production Units

, analyzing the energy and carbon performance of compressor anti-surge control systems on existing offshore platforms in the Brazilian pre-salt fields.

According to Fabio Jacinto Zanetti De Souza, Brownfield Account Manager at CCC: “The primary function of the anti-surge control system is to prevent the centrifugal compressor from operating under surge conditions, which is a potentially damaging phenomenon for the compressor. However, the secondary functions of an anti-surge control system are often overlooked or unaddressed by many providers. It can help maintain specific suction pressure in centrifugal compressors through a Ps limit loop or prevent reaching a high discharge pressure through a Pd limit loop. The system also avoids high discharge temperature that could lead to a trip due to high Td or manipulate the anti-surge valve for periodic stroke tests and send operators an alarm if the valve demonstrates some level of stickiness. The anti-surge control can also be used to avoid critical speeds during startup of an expander-recompressor arrangement in natural gas liquids plants or even prevent overspeed.”

Pedro Barbosa, Turbomachinery Advisor at Petrobras laid out several challenges with running a gas compressor on a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel in the Brazilian pre-salt fields:

Gas compressors are the largest power consumers and greenhouse gas emitters aboard an FPSO vessel  

FPSOs have highly variable operating conditions over unit lifecycle  

Following startup, gas compressors are difficult to tune  

Pre-salt FPSOs contain complex plants with high CO

 content, affecting compressor curves and surge lines

Barbosa addressed further compressor difficulties that could be assisted by anti-surge control. “When the unit is treating gas for exportation, it passes through a CO

 removal plant to the export compressors, then to a gas pipeline,” said Barbosa. “The compressors begin to work in a non-flow-sharing mode, meaning that one machine can be used for exportation and the other rejects non-treated gas. The machines begin to compete, with one increasing flow and the other decreasing— this is when surge control becomes important.”

According to Serge Staroselsky, Chief Technology Officer at CCC, Petrobras leveraged an anti-surge control system to achieve multiple performance benefits: equipment protection, improved efficiency, increased reliability, and enhanced safety.

Anti-surge systems detect when a compressor is approaching surge conditions and take corrective action to prevent the condition from occurring. By preventing surge, these systems can help to reduce the frequency and cost of maintenance and repairs.

They can help to optimize compressor operation by maintaining their most efficient point, thus reducing energy consumption. Minimizing unnecessary power output keeps gas compressors from emitting large amounts of CO

The systems reduce compressor downtime and improve overall plant productivity and process stability. Controlling system margins, such as anti-surge valve performance and flow measurement signal quality, can also reduce gas recycling.

Surge can lead to dangerous conditions, such as sudden pressure surges or vibrations. Anti-surge systems can help reduce the risk of accidents and improve overall safety on FPSO vessels. 

Following anti-surge control integration, “We calculate the operating point of the machines, we calculate power, and then we assess anti-surge valve closing to see how much we’ll save,” said Staroselsky. “After the calculations, we reduced the margin by 5% and, in the minimum case, saved 170 kW of power. In the maximum case, during operation over the entire year, we could generate around 500 kW in potential savings.”

Combining optimized turbomachinery controls with the appropriate energy and carbon-performance management system help decarbonize offshore operations, “by ensuring that energy consumption and emissions are minimized through precise control and monitoring,” De Souza said. “Optimized controls enhance the efficiency of turbomachinery, reducing the power required for operation, while the performance management system tracks energy use and carbon emissions in real-time. This integrated approach allows for continuous adjustments and improvements, ensuring that operations remain as efficient and low-emission as possible, ultimately leading to significant reductions in the carbon footprint of offshore oil production units.” 

After utilizing the compressor anti-surge control system, De Souza said the reduction in recycle flow on the Petrobras project would lead to an overall efficiency increase of 4%. “On an FPSO powered by gas turbogenerators, it will reduce fuel-gas consumption by 630,000 standard cubic meters per year. The carbon emissions saved with this optimization would reach 1,600 tons of CO

 per year. All these numbers are calculated for a single 11-MW compressor train—an FPSO contains five to six of these trains.”

The industry is familiar with carbon-capture technologies’ ability to remove CO

 from flue gas streams. Still, the challenges of providing the flue gas in the correct conditions and supplying the energy required for the CO

 reviewed the most common types of carbon-capture technologies and explored how open-cycle gas turbines could achieve similar results.

Mike Welch, Industry Marketing Manager at Siemens Energy, said gas turbines can achieve decarbonization by firing low-carbon fuels and their plants can be equipped with post-combustion capture technology. Despite these carbon capabilities, users typically favor traditional technologies over gas turbines for capture applications, citing low CO

 concentration in exhaust (3 - 4%) and high exhaust gas temperatures as the primary challenges.

He outlined several considerations for choosing carbon-capture technologies, including:

Impact of NOx and SOx on solvent life and replacement rate

According to Welch, carbon capture is a difficult process when using gas turbines: “The only certain thing about CO

 capture is that you’ll need a lot of space, and it’ll cost you a lot of money—it’s not a cheap solution. Most processes are designed to operate at low ambient temperatures, so you become limited to the available technologies when operating with a gas turbine. There are only a few that don’t require cooling of the gas turbine exhaust and most of the emerging technologies can’t support large-scale turbines.”

Despite the inherent challenges of running current carbon-capture technologies in conjunction with gas turbines, there are many available systems in use today. The most common are amine-based systems, which utilize proven solvents to absorb CO

 with low toxicity and low energy demand for desorption. However, these solutions have large footprints and long construction times, with higher energy demand for absorption.

Often applied to smaller emitters that generate less than 1,000 tons of CO

 per day. With a smaller footprint, towers have shorter construction times and can be used at space-constrained sites, such as offshore platforms.

 adsorption through centrifugal force, but generally lower capture rates at approximately 100 tons per day.

Proven for gas processing and scalable to large CO

 capture volumes. The energy demand is similar to amine towers, but these systems can use hot water for solvent desorption. On the downside, potassium carbonate operates with low flue gas inlet temperatures.

Unlike typical potassium carbonate, it operates at high flue gas temperatures in a pressurized process. It can generate its own electricity and gas turbine supplementary firing can increase CO

These are also proven for gas processing but struggle when applied to gas turbines, as multiple modules are required to achieve the desired capture rate and purity. Membrane contactor modules are a hybrid solution combined with amine solvents.

Electro-swing adsorption can be used on gas streams with any CO

 concentration and, according to electrochemical operators, can selectively capture NOx and SOx.

Lukas Biyikli, R&D Portfolio Manager of Integrally Geared Compressors at Siemens Energy, outlined the basics of CO

 compression and utilization processes following capture. Although compression is the primary electricity consumer in carbon-capture plants, it is a critical step for transportation via pipeline—the most economical way to move CO

 from point A to point B. The main equipment for compression applications is reciprocating, single-shaft, and integrally geared compressors.

Although compression is the primary electricity consumer in carbon-capture plant, it is a critical step for transportation via pipeline—the most economical way to move CO

 from point A to point B. - Lukas Biyikli

Biyikli pointed out: “Through heat recovery from compressors, hot water for district heating or process steam up to 10 bar is available via heat exchangers by adapting the compressor design slightly. There is a great synergy between the heat and steam demand that conventional amine-based capture systems have and the steam provided by the compressors since amine systems typically require high amounts of saturated steam between 3 and 6 bar—in range of what the compressor can deliver. Siemens Energy’s concept provides up to 80% of the steam demand for an amine system while only increasing the power requirement of the compressor by onesixth of that heat provided compared to conventional compressor operation, which means a coefficient of performance of up to 6.0 for the system.”

Performance of Industrial Gas Turbines and Bottoming Cycles

, led by Karl Wygant, Senior Manager at Ebara Elliott Energy, Klaus Brun, Director of Global R&D at Ebara Elliott Energy, and Rainer Kurz, Principal of RKSBenergy, discussed control strategies and performance characteristics for the engine compressor, combustor, and turbine section. 

In addition to covering energy flow concepts between turbine components, the panel outlined control concepts for single- and two-shaft machines, driving generators, compressors, and pumps. Bottoming cycle performance is also discussed, with methods to use performance data for trending and comparison analyses.

Brun led the discussion on gas turbine thermodynamics, which began with descriptions of both enthalpy and entropy. “Enthalpy has many definitions, but from the easiest perspective it’s energy per unit/ mass or how much energy you have in the process fluid, which is air in a gas turbine and water in a steam turbine. Entropy can be described as the second law of thermodynamics. If entropy is very high, you have a lot of losses in the system.”

Gas turbine thermodynamic cycles are typically based on the Brayton cycle, which consists of four main processes:

The working fluid (usually air) is compressed in a compressor, increasing its pressure and temperature.

The compressed air is heated in a combustion chamber by burning fuel, increasing its temperature at constant pressure.

The hot, high-pressure gas expands through a turbine, producing mechanical work and decreasing its temperature and pressure.

The expanded gas is cooled in a heat exchanger (if present), rejecting heat to the surroundings at constant pressure.

Wygant closed out the tutorial by highlighting the three most common bottoming cycles for industrial gas turbines: the Steam Rankine, Organic Rankine, and Closed Brayton cycles. 

The Steam Rankine cycle uses water or steam as the working fluid—waste heat is used to boil water into steam, which drives the turbine to generate electricity. This cycle is less efficient at lower temperatures due to water’s high boiling point. 

Organic Rankine Cycles use organic fluids, such as hydrocarbons and refrigerants, in a similar process to the aforementioned steam cycle. With a lower boiling point working fluid, it allows for efficient operation at lower temperatures, flexible design, and a wider range of applicable fluids. 

Lastly, the Closed Brayton Cycle uses gas as its working fluid—waste heat is used to heat a gas, which expands through a turbine to generate electricity. The gas is then compressed and the cycle repeats. It maintains high efficiency at high temperatures, potential for combined-cycle applications (with a gas turbine), and a relatively simple design.

TPS 2024 tackled the latest challenges, solutions, and technologies in the turbomachinery industry.

Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia 2024: Emerging Technologies in the Spotlight

Turbo Tour of EthosEnergy’s facility in Houston, Performance Center Director Daniel Tegtmeier offered his insights into the growth and evolution of remote monitoring, its advantages and challenges, and how the company seeks to establish partnerships in all things turbine- and plant-related.

Daniel Tegtmeier of EthosEnergy shares how remote monitoring has grown over the past several years and the advantages and challenges of virtual capabilities. 

Remote Monitoring: Growth, Advantages, and Challenges

Q: How has remote monitoring grown and evolved over the past several years? What’s next?

What started as very manual processes has now evolved to mostly automatic and automatically generated monitoring activities. What used to take operators and engineers days to troubleshoot problems is now an automated process via advancements in technology.

Q: EthosEnergy now has full start/stop capability on natural gas-fired power plants. What advantage does this offer your customers?

It’s more than just start and stop in thermal plants; we can start and stop renewable assets as well. Some of the advantages of remote operation are efficiencies. You could streamline the staffing model for intermittent thermal assets. Secondly, our package includes remote monitoring and advanced analytics that’s applied to the remote operation of customer assets, ensuring that they stay competitive in today’s market.

Q: What’s the biggest challenge facing the power industry as it relates to remote operations?

The biggest challenge is the reluctance to shift operating modes from mostly on-site human presence—operating the plant as designed—to remote facilities that apply humans to asset monitoring.

Q: What are EthosEnergy’s five- to 10-year goals?

The five-year goal is growth. EthosEnergy aspires to be a partner in all things turbine- and plant-related, and it’s not just the power industry. Turbines are used in a host of operations like LNG and oil and gas—we seek to be the largest partner for all those industries in the realm of rotating equipment. We want to increase partnerships and our OEM presence.

Remote Monitoring: Growth, Advantages, and Challenges 

Last week, Siemens Energy and Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) reported 

the successful operation of an SGT-A35 gas turbine on methanol

. It demonstrated a decrease of up to 80% in NOx. Tyler Clifford—Senior Technology Engineer of Fuel Flexibility, Hydrogen, and Carbon Capture at Siemens Energy—spoke with 

 about the company’s partnership with NZTC and its recent demonstration using an alternative fuel to decarbonize a gas turbine. Siemens Energy manufactured and installed the new components needed for the methanol-fuel conversion using 3D printing techniques.

TURBO: What are the main drivers for using methanol as an alternative fuel?

 Diesel-fueled gas turbines are commonly used as emergency backup power sources in industrial applications and power generation or marine propulsion. They are favored for their reliability, efficiency, and quick start-up capabilities, making them ideal for various critical and remote applications.

Methanol can replace diesel as backup fuel or provide a lower emission alternative for power generation e.g., in remote locations where pipeline supply of gas is not available. Methanol is also an attractive fuel for the marine industry to replace fuel oils, due to its ease of storage onboard and global availability in numerous ports.

Methanol has a well-established global supply chain, and its methods of storage and transportation are well-understood, making it attractive from a supply-chain perspective. The production of green methanol is rapidly growing due to demand in the marine industry, which can simply be ‘dropped’ into this existing supply chain.

During this demonstration, what percentage of methanol was used, and what type of methanol(s) was used?

 For this demonstration, 100% conventional methanol was used.

TURBO: What are the advantages of using 3D-printed components to retrofit a gas turbine? How long does a retrofit take? How long did it take to retrofit the turbine used in this demonstration?

 3D printing allowed for rapid prototyping of multiple concept designs. These concepts were subjected to flow testing at atmospheric conditions, allowing us to down-select the designs based on the most promising results for the full engine demonstration. It took around one week to install and commission the retrofit for this demonstration, which included gas turbine combustion components and auxiliary systems such as:

suppression and control system modifications

This was specific to this demonstration test on a test bed; implementation at commercially operating sites may vary.

TURBO: What are the benefits of methanol in terms of decarbonization? Does it increase fuel costs or is it comparable to natural gas?

Methanol can be produced from various feedstocks. Conventional methanol is typically made from natural gas but can still offer a 10% reduction in CO

 emissions compared to diesel. Methanol can be made from lower-carbon sources such as biogenic (bio-methanol) or renewable hydrogen and captured CO

 (e-methanol), offering up to 95% reduction in CO

From a cost perspective, conventional methanol is competitive with diesel. Of course, cost will increase using methanol with a lower-carbon intensity such as bio- or e-methanol. Methanol, in all its forms, reduces NOx emissions by up to 80% as well as reducing other pollutants such as SO2, particulate matter, and smoke.

TURBO: What other practical steps can gas turbine manufacturers take to reduce CO

 emissions in difficult-to-decarbonize industries?

 There are several pathways available to decarbonize gas turbines. Firstly, by increasing the efficiency of the gas turbine by upgrading with more efficient parts or digital plant optimization solutions resulting in lower fuel consumption and therefore fewer emissions. Secondly, reducing the use of carbon-based fuels by blending in lower carbon fuels such as hydrogen. For full decarbonization, the switch to 100% carbon-free fuel is required. Fuels considered by Siemens Energy for use in its gas turbines are hydrogen, methanol, biofuels, and ammonia. Alternatively, traditional fuel (i.e., natural gas) can continue to be used with carbon capture and storage (CCS) to capture the CO

TURBO: What other decarbonization efforts is Siemens Energy involved with?

 Siemens Energy supports decarbonization in each of its four business areas. The wind business with its subsidiary Siemens Gamesa is at the forefront here. The solutions provided by the Grid Technologies business area ensure that climate-neutral electricity is transported to where it is needed. Transformation of Industries is dedicated to the decarbonization of energy-intensive industries and the production of PEM electrolyzers for hydrogen production. The decarbonization of gas turbines falls within the remit of the Gas Services business area.

Tyler Clifford of Siemens Energy speaks on alternative fuels like methanol, gas turbines, 3D printing, and decarbonizing industrial markets. 

Siemens Energy Highlights Alternative Fuels to Power Gas Turbines, Decrease Emissions, Boost Decarbonization Efforts

Turbomachinery International’s Handbook

 has arrived. This issue is packed with market forecasts—for the power industry as a whole and gas turbines specifically—an expert from ETN Global’s market report on decentralized energy systems, a roundup of our coverage from Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia (TPS) 2024, and insights from our columnists: Turbo Tips and Myth Busters. The 2025 Handbook also includes a category index, a comprehensive directory, and equipment specifications.

The 2024 elections are weighing heavy on the power industry and companies that own and operate power generation assets. Although President Biden pushed many energy and environmental initiatives—including a zero-carbon power sector by 2035—Britt Burt and Brock Ramey, authors of our cover story, 

, make a strong supporting case that the United States is indeed not on “a one-way trip to a carbon-free electric future.”

The duo breaks down the power industry sectors: coal, natural gas, renewables, nuclear, microgrids, batteries, and beyond. With political uncertainty, delays in the planned retirement of coal-fired generators, record summer temperatures, and AI data centers skyrocketing electricity demands, Burt and Ramey expect 2025 - 2029 to be “extraordinarily choppy for the new-build U.S. power industry and those who service generators.”

Carter Palmer lays out the global gas turbine market for 2025, which he says is stable and will remain so among factors such as hydrogen, digitalization, and renewable energy. He says gas turbines offer a promising avenue for decarbonization through their adaptability to hydrogen fuel. However, the transition involves significant challenges, including adjustments to control systems, safety concerns, and economic considerations. In terms of digitalization, operators can gain valuable insights into turbine performance and health by utilizing sensors, data analytics, and artificial intelligence.

The integration of digital technologies is revolutionizing the operation and maintenance of gas turbines. - Carter Palmer

Giuseppe Tilocca, Scientific Officer at ETN Global, offers another perspective on gas turbines. Our Q&A conversation examines the association’s global report, 

Decentralized Energy Systems: Toward Carbon-Neutral Energy Solutions for Gas Turbines

, which compares decentralized systems to centralized heat and power units and highlights its advantages—including modularity, the possibility to exploit waste heat avoiding energy transmission losses, and reducing energy distribution costs. 

Listen to our editor’s podcast conversation with Tilocca here

TPS 2024 was a spotlight for emerging technologies. It tackled the latest challenges, solutions, and technologies in the turbomachinery industry. Our roundup show report gives readers a snapshot of our onsite reporting. Check out our comprehensive coverage, including session overviews, Q&As, video interviews, and more on our 

Challenges with Dry Gas Seals for Turbocompressors

, concludes that compressor seal systems are the most common culprit of unscheduled shutdowns. Check out the column to find out more. Additionally, the Myth Busters close out their two-part series on compressor maps and address the two extremes: surge and choke. Hear Klaus Brun and Rainer Kurz discuss compressor maps in 

The 2025 Handbook includes a comprehensive outlook of the power industry and gas turbine market as well as an industry-wide directory and specifications listings.

Turbomachinery International: 2025 Handbook

’s visit to EthosEnergy’s Houston-based light gas turbine workshop, Philip Booth, the Engineering Manager, shared his favorite part of day-to-day operations and offered insight into the available tools used in reverse engineering.

EthosEnergy’s Engineering Manager Philip Booth discusses available technology in reverse engineering for rotating equipment.

Reverse Engineering Adapts with Advanced Technologies

Q: What progress has been made over the last 10 - 20 years in available technology relating to engineering/reverse-engineering capability for rotating equipment?

The technology from OEMs has become increasingly complex, so reverse engineering must follow that complexity. Some of the available tools used to be computerized maintenance management systems (CMMs) where you get low-density data; we’re now using the most advanced blue-light scanning technology to capture the fit, form, and derive the function of parts.

We have a lot of technology available that is way beyond replicating a part. But we need to engineer solutions into that part so that we can make advancements to avoid early-life failure and bring that to bear so that our products are equal to anything from OEMs in the marketplace.

Q: What is your favorite part of day-to-day operations at your facility?

 It’s the range of subjects we cover. From an engineering point-of-view, the team can be looking at performance data in the morning; they can be working on a repair development program at lunch; we’re supporting the workshop in the afternoon; and we might be supporting a field-service technician across the world in the evening. I love being part of those conversations and being part of the problem-solving process.

Check out our video interview with EthosEnergy on 

Aftermarket, Repairs, and Overhaul Market.

Featured Content

Worldwide Gas Turbine Forecast 2025

U.S. Power Industry Outlook 2025

Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia 2024: Emerging Technologies in the Spotlight

Remote Monitoring: Growth, Advantages, and Challenges

Siemens Energy Highlights Alternative Fuels to Power Gas Turbines, Decrease Emissions, Boost Decarbonization Efforts

Turbomachinery International: 2025 Handbook

Reverse Engineering Adapts with Advanced Technologies

Myth: Part 1: A Centrifugal Compressor Map is Just Test Results