POWERGEN’s Opening Keynote Discusses AI, Data Centers, Gas Turbines
Keynote speakers focused on power consumption and how it will be managed and sustained in the future.
Downtown Dallas welcomed attendees and exhibitors from the energy and power-generation industries at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center as POWERGEN International 2025 kicked off.
Jamie Reesby of Clarion Events welcomed attendees and kicked off the opening keynote Tuesday morning. She gave a brief history of power from the 19th to 21st centuries and announced that POWERGEN 2026 will take place in San Antonio, Texas.
Artificial Intelligence
Kevin Clark, Content Director of Clarion Events, welcomed Marc Spieler, Senior Managing Director of Energy at NVIDIA, to the stage. NVIDIA, an accelerating computing platform company, is using its AI to support all things power.
“Feedstock for AI is data and electrons,” Spieler said. “Silicon is the foundation, but software delivers results.”
Newer AI platforms can work with each other and assist human operations. Spieler said that AI will be integrated into power generation hardware, like turbines and transformers, forming digital twins in the future.
Power consumption is expected to grow due to transformer evolution. “Inferencing has accelerated AI exponentially,” he said. “It is becoming more efficient and lowering data center consumption.”
Power consumption from AI and data centers is a hot topic, and there is no slowdown in sight. Data center demand will continue to grow, but Spieler suspects that other industries will consume more power over the next 10 years.
He sees AI as a solution: “AI can deliver more production, less risk, low costs, a low-carbon footprint, and a better customer/employee experience,” he said. “Large language models make data accessible and prevent workflow waste.”
Energy companies currently use AI for data science and predictive AI, robotics, computer vision, digital twins, physics machine learning (ML), security, and generative AI.
“Accelerated AI is sustainable and solves more problems than it causes,” Spieler said. “It must be embraced, or you'll fall behind.”
Data Centers
Chris Crosby, CEO of Compass Datacenters, which builds the data centers that house AI, gave a brief overview of data centers and how they vary: some are built to last, and some are built to "exit", he said.
Standardizing data centers enables scaling up or down. Given that construction cannot keep pace with data center demand, homogenous designs are important.
“Data centers can transform grids for the better despite consumption challenges,” Crosby said. “Scaling up requires cookie-cutter setups and equipment within utilities.”
Currently, Compass uses hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) to power data centers, but it is moving toward natural gas. He also said that regulations are a roadblock to loading the grid with power, as the EPA classifies HVO the same as diesel.
Texas Energy
Eliecer Viamontes, CEO of Entergy Texas, briefed attendees on the company’s scope and plans to power Southeast Texas. He said many factors impacted the company’s load forecast, including the Ukraine war, electrification, and data center demand. The company builds in areas with a rich hydrogen infrastructure, so there is promise there, given that Texas needs 40% more capacity in the next four years.
Viamontes outlined Entergy’s Southeast Texas Energy Plan (STEP):
- Keep rates affordable
- Build more power generation immediately
- 24/7 dispatchable power
- All-of-the-above generation
- Routing power to where it is needed
- Protect the grid from extreme weather
He said that carbon capture works in tandem with this plan. STEP Ahead will provide four additional generation sources: Legend, Lone Star, Segno, and Votaw— Segno and Votaw are renewables.
Looking ahead, Viamontes said Entergy, Meta, and AWS will build largest data center in Louisiana.
Richard Voorberg, President of North America at Siemens Energy, presents at POWERGEN 2025's opening keynote. Credit: Turbomachinery International
Gas Turbines
Richard Voorberg, President of North America at Siemens Energy, said gas turbines have grown tremendously since 2022.
“Siemens Energy is developing newly sized gas turbines,” he said.
Oil and gas are necessary to support dispatchable power. Siemens Energy is expanding its power generation facilities across the United States. “American-made is an upcoming mandate, so Siemens Energy will focus on U.S.-based power,” Voorber said.
The next issue is securing the power supply, which will require more research and development (R&D). To this point, Siemens Energy spent over $4 billion in recent years in R&D.
“Partnerships are the way forward,” he said.
POWERGEN 2025 Keynotes
The second keynote of the day, AI’s Power Play: Meeting the Growing Energy Demands of Data Centers, will explore how utilities, digital infrastructure, and other key players are responding to the increasing power demand from AI and data centers. Blair Loftis, National Director of Power Generation & Transmission at Terracon, will moderate the panel, which includes speakers from Duke Energy, NVIDIA, Salt River Project, and more.
Kevin Clark, Content Director of Clarion Events, said this keynote panel “features utilities, digital infrastructure, and other stakeholders discussing how market participants can work to address data center load growth.
Wednesday, Feb. 12, at 8:15 a.m., a panel of OEMs from GE Vernova, Mitsubishi Power Americas, PSM - a Hanwha Company, Siemens Energy, and Solar Turbines, are tackling
The Role of Gas Turbines in the Clean Energy Transition. The keynote will highlight the rapid development of low-carbon fuel retrofits for gas turbines, specifically focusing on hydrogen and ammonia.
