The Perfect Storm: Why Gas Turbine Aftermarket Services Just Became Critical Infrastructure

The power generation industry is facing a crisis that no one saw coming five years ago. Three major forces are converging in 2025, and the collision is forcing plant operators to rethink how they manage their gas turbine fleets completely.

If you run a power plant, you already feel it. If you're an asset owner, your phone is ringing. And if you're on the engineering side, you're scrambling to figure out how to keep the lights on with what you've got. Because getting new equipment? Good luck with that.

Force #1: Regulatory Whiplash

In June 2025, the EPA proposed repealing greenhouse gas emissions standards for fossil fuel power plants, reversing Biden-era rules that would have required new gas turbines to capture 90% of carbon emissions. The stated goal: ensure affordable, reliable baseload power and restore American energy dominance.

But just seven months earlier, in November 2024, the same EPA proposed tightening nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions limits for new, modified, and reconstructed gas turbines under the New Source Performance Standards review. The new rules would require selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology across most new turbine installations and apply stricter controls to hydrogen co-firing operations.

For operators, this is regulatory chaos. Do you invest in carbon capture readiness or focus on NOx controls? Do you modify an existing unit and trigger compliance requirements, or run it as-is and risk obsolescence? No one has clear answers, and the comment periods are still open. What's certain is that compliance costs are rising, and capital budgets are frozen until the dust settles.

Force #2: AI is Breaking the Grid

Here's the number that should terrify anyone responsible for grid reliability: AI-driven data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity by 2030, according to recent industry projections. In practical terms, that's equivalent to powering 20-40% of today's vehicles if they were all electric.

The impact is already visible. In PJM, capacity market clearing prices for the 2026-2027 delivery year jumped to $329.17/MW, over ten times higher than the $28.92/MW price just two years earlier. Data center growth is a primary driver. ERCOT forecasts that grid demand may double by 2030. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) expects national peak demand to increase by 150 GW over the next decade, an 18% increase over current levels.

But here's the real problem: data centers don't behave like traditional loads. AI training workloads create rapid, unpredictable power fluctuations that stress grid stability in ways operators have never dealt with. A gigawatt-scale data center can swing from full load to near-idle in fractions of a second. When these facilities switch to backup power during grid events, they can take hundreds of megawatts offline instantly, triggering voltage and frequency fluctuations that cascade through the system.

A July 2025 Department of Energy report laid it out clearly: without urgent reforms, the U.S. electric grid will be unable to support the nation's economic ambitions in AI and digital infrastructure. The report projects a 100-fold increase in annual hours of lost load by 2030 under current retirement trajectories, with some regions facing the possibility of losing up to 43% of hourly load during extreme events.

The grid needs dispatchable, reliable baseload power. And it needs it now.

Force #3: You Can't Buy a Gas Turbine

This is where things get really interesting. Utilities across the country are scrambling to add gas-fired capacity to meet surging demand and replace retiring coal plants. Speculation of power growth is steeper than any historic energy growth bubble the US has ever seen, and it is unclear what the exact MW need by each region is.

There's just one problem: the turbines don't exist. Highlighting one of the many problems with this is that generation needs do not match the next generation availability, and many US markets will face shortfalls.

Mitsubishi Power says turbines ordered today won't be delivered until 2028-2030. GE Vernova announced new turbines won't be available until late 2028 at the earliest. Siemens Energy reports a record backlog of €131 billion. Manufacturing capacity is running at roughly 90% utilization, and wait times have stretched to five to seven years in some cases.

Cost escalation is brutal. Gas turbine prices have tripled in the last 24 months. A recent Wood Mackenzie report found procurement costs now regularly exceed planning estimates by 30-50%. Duke Indiana's Cayuga combined-cycle plant, for example, saw estimated costs jump from the original resource plan to $2,340 per kilowatt, a 36% increase that translated to $900 million in additional project costs for the 1,476 MW facility.

Even if you can secure a turbine slot, you're looking at major supply chain constraints for transformers, switchgear, and balance-of-plant equipment. Labor shortages add another layer of complexity. Major EPC contractors report hiring six workers for every one that makes it through to completion, with turnover driven by competition from data center construction, semiconductor fabs, and LNG terminals.

What This Means for Plant Operators

The message is clear: you can't build your way out of this in the next 3-5 years. If you need capacity, you have to optimize what you already have.

That means getting more out of existing gas turbines. Higher availability. Better heat rates. Extended run times between outages. Faster startups to capture high-value peaking opportunities. Every megawatt you can squeeze from your current fleet is a megawatt you don't have to wait seven years to source.

This is where the aftermarket becomes critical infrastructure.

Advanced gas turbine upgrades can add 5-20% capacity to existing frames. Hot section inspections and component life extension programs reduce unplanned downtime. Digital monitoring and predictive analytics catch issues before they force outages. Control system upgrades improve dispatch flexibility so you can respond faster to market signals. These aren't optional optimizations anymore. They're baseline requirements for keeping the grid stable.

The plants that will thrive in this environment are the ones treating their turbines like high-performance assets that need constant attention, not equipment you run until it breaks. Preventive maintenance schedules need to be tighter. Outage planning needs to be smarter. Parts procurement needs to anticipate lead time crunches.

And with regulatory uncertainty still hanging over the industry, flexibility matters more than ever. Fuel flexibility (natural gas, hydrogen blending, distillate backup) keeps your options open. Emissions control strategies that can adapt to evolving NOx and CO2 requirements protect your capital investment. Modular upgrades that can be staged over time let you spread costs and reduce project risk.

The Bottom Line

The next five years will separate the operators who can keep their fleets running at peak performance from those who can't. Supply chains are constrained. Demand is surging. Regulation is in flux. And the grid is more fragile than anyone wants to admit.

If your gas turbines are sitting idle or running at reduced capacity because of maintenance backlogs, parts delays, or performance issues, you're leaving revenue on the table. Worse, you're contributing to grid instability at a time when every megawatt counts.

The opportunity window is now. Turbine availability has never been more valuable, and the aftermarket has never been more important.

Need to optimize your gas turbine fleet for higher availability, better performance, or extended life? PSM specializes in gas turbine aftermarket services, upgrades, and lifecycle management. We help plant operators maximize output from existing assets when new equipment isn't an option. Contact us to discuss how we can support your fleet.

References:

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "EPA Proposes Repeal of Biden-Harris EPA Regulations for Power Plants," June 11, 2025.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Review of New Source Performance Standards for Stationary Combustion Turbines," Federal Register, December 13, 2024.
• U.S. Department of Energy, "Grid Reliability at a Crossroads," July 2025.
• Deloitte, "As Generative AI Asks for More Power, Data Centers Seek More Reliable, Cleaner Energy Solutions," 2025 TMT Predictions, November 2024.
• American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), "Future-Proof AI Data Centers, Grid Reliability, and Affordable Energy," 2025.
• Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), "Gas Turbine Supply Constraints Threaten Grid Reliability," July 2, 2025.
• POWER Magazine, "Gas Power's Boom Sparks a Turbine Supply Crunch," April 1, 2025.
• S&P Global Commodity Insights, "US Gas-Fired Turbine Wait Times as Much as Seven Years; Costs Up Sharply," May 20, 2025.