Gas will be vital to powering data centres to 2035, says report
Billions of cubic metres of gas will be needed to power the global data centre boom over the next decade, a new report has claimed.
Although renewables are expected to provide about half of data centres’ electricity consumption by 2030, the International Gas Union (IGU) report argues that their intermittency “creates a mismatch with the flat, 24/7 load profile of data centres which requires not only more generation but also significantly more dispatchable capacity”.
It finds that gas-fired generation for data centres could nearly double by 2035, equal to approximately 60 billion cubic metres of supply.
The report also notes that data centres are increasingly turning to their own onsite, autonomous sources of gas-fired power. Its publication follows British company AVK announcing a new exclusive partnership with Rolls-Royce to deliver generators to the UK and Ireland, principally for the data centre market. The Rolls-Royce gas generators are also capable of running on hydrotreated vegetable oil, a biofuel which cuts emissions of greenhouse gases, particulate matter and NOx.
According to the IGU, there is a growing global trend for data centre infrastructure to be located close to gas-fired sources of power. Noting that modern combined cycle turbines had an efficiency of 50-55% and could be deployed quickly, with much lower emissions than coal, the report argues that “gas is not a transitional bridge but a structural, long-term anchor of AI-era power systems”.
For example, in the Southeast of the US, Duke Energy’s plans in the Carolinas include new gas capacity tied to hyperscale demand, while another large US utility, Entergy, is developing a gas-backed project with Meta in Louisiana. AWS has also signed a bridging agreement with AEP in Ohio to guarantee reliable supply during interconnection delays. In Dublin, Microsoft has secured approval for a 170MW on-site gas plant at its Grange Castle campus to safeguard operations during grid stress, and in Frankfurt, CyrusOne is partnering with E.ON on a 61MW on-site gas engine facility to directly support a hyperscale data centre.
The report said that many tech majors were exploiting power purchase agreements (PPAs) for renewable energy, with about a third of global PPAs now made by the
Although renewables are expected to provide about half of data centres’ electricity consumption by 2030, the International Gas Union (IGU) report argues that their intermittency “creates a mismatch with the flat, 24/7 load profile of data centres which requires not only more generation but also significantly more dispatchable capacity”.
It finds that gas-fired generation for data centres could nearly double by 2035, equal to approximately 60 billion cubic metres of supply.
The report also notes that data centres are increasingly turning to their own onsite, autonomous sources of gas-fired power. Its publication follows British company AVK announcing a new exclusive partnership with Rolls-Royce to deliver generators to the UK and Ireland, principally for the data centre market. The Rolls-Royce gas generators are also capable of running on hydrotreated vegetable oil, a biofuel which cuts emissions of greenhouse gases, particulate matter and NOx.
According to the IGU, there is a growing global trend for data centre infrastructure to be located close to gas-fired sources of power. Noting that modern combined cycle turbines had an efficiency of 50-55% and could be deployed quickly, with much lower emissions than coal, the report argues that “gas is not a transitional bridge but a structural, long-term anchor of AI-era power systems”.
For example, in the Southeast of the US, Duke Energy’s plans in the Carolinas include new gas capacity tied to hyperscale demand, while another large US utility, Entergy, is developing a gas-backed project with Meta in Louisiana. AWS has also signed a bridging agreement with AEP in Ohio to guarantee reliable supply during interconnection delays. In Dublin, Microsoft has secured approval for a 170MW on-site gas plant at its Grange Castle campus to safeguard operations during grid stress, and in Frankfurt, CyrusOne is partnering with E.ON on a 61MW on-site gas engine facility to directly support a hyperscale data centre.
The report said that many tech majors were exploiting power purchase agreements (PPAs) for renewable energy, with about a third of global PPAs now made by the
