Bypassing the Grid: How Data Center Developers Are Building Their Own Power Plants

Executive summary

In recent years, the time to connect a data center to the power grid has grown significantly. In response, many data center developers are choosing to build their own power plants and avoid the grid—or connect later.

In what we believe is the most comprehensive analysis of this trend to date, we identified 59 data centers with a combined capacity of ~90 GW that plan to build their own power "behind-the-meter." That represents more than 25% of all planned data center capacity in the United States, according to Cleanview's project tracker.

In the last year, this trend has gone from niche to mainstream. 92% of the projects we identified—representing approximately 82 GW—have been announced since the beginning of 2025. A year ago, behind-the-meter data center power was a curiosity, embodied by xAI's controversial decision to truck mobile generators into Memphis. Now it's an increasingly common development strategy.

Nearly every hyperscaler is pursuing behind-the-meter power projects—either directly or through partners. We identified projects from Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle. AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic have signed leases for more than 10 GW of behind-the-meter power.

Data center developers are using anything they can get their hands on

The equipment being deployed is not what utilities typically buy to generate power. Heavy-duty combined-cycle gas turbines—the most efficient option for baseload power—have long lead times and are largely unavailable. Data center developers are instead turning to:

• Mobile gas generators strapped to semitrucks
• Aeroderivative turbines originally designed for aircraft and warships
• Reciprocating engines that ramp fast, but are less efficient
• Refurbished turbines acquired from industrial operations

In our research, we came across a company that typically sells cruise ship engines that struck a deal to power a data center. One developer, unable to secure enough conventional turbines, placed a $1.25 billion order with Boom Supersonic—a company that has never sold a power generation product. Elon Musk's xAI famously drove in semitrucks with natural gas generators on the back to build what was at one time the world's largest data center.

Power generation efficiency is out. Speed to power is all that developers care about. AI data centers can generate $10–12 million per MW annually, or $10–12 billion per GW. Bringing a data center online even a few years early could result in tens of billions in revenue that would otherwise be forgone. In this environment, developers are willing to overlook inefficiencies that could cost millions of dollars.

Among OEMs, Caterpillar has the highest market share (33%) of projects we track. We found more than 8.8 GW of permitted Caterpillar engines and Solar Turbines. Bloom Energy rose in market share (14%) since our last report in February due to its megadeal with Oracle to power Stargate Project Jupiter in New Mexico. The full report has market share estimates for the top 10 OEMs.

Development is concentrating in a few mostly red states

Just five states account for 83% of all proposed BTM capacity. Two patterns stand out among top states: proximity to major natural gas production regions and regulatory frameworks that favor rapid development.

Texas leads total announced capacity by a wide margin, driven by Permian Basin gas supply, extensive pipeline infrastructure, and the state's permissive regulatory environment. Ohio leads the country in behind-the-meter capacity under construction with projects from Meta and EdgeConneX that will add a combined 736 MW of gas generation capacity. Both projects are located within miles of each other in the New Albany Business Park east of Columbus.

We expect ~3 GW of capacity to be online by the end of 2026

While the behind-the-meter data center market is enormous on paper, it's still nascent in practice. Of the roughly 90 GW of generation capacity we've identified across all projects, only about 2 GW is actually operating today—2.5% of the total. 1.2% is under construction. Another 36% has been permitted, and the remaining 60% exists only as announcements or early-stage plans.

As of mid-2026, approximately 2 GW of behind-the-meter generation capacity is online across four projects. The vast majority of that belongs to xAI. Colossus 1 and 2 outside Memphis account for 1,498 MW of operating gas turbine capacity — a figure that has grown steadily as xAI added dozens of temporary mobile turbines at the Southaven power plant site.

Satellite images of Colossus 1 and 2 outside of Memphis, TN. Captured May 13, 2026. © Airbus DS (2026)

By the end of 2026, total operating capacity should grow to between 2.8 and 3.2 GW. After 2026, the range of possible outcomes grows significantly. If all projects with signed tenants reach their construction timelines—a big if in the current environment—then another 10 GW could come online in 2027, bringing the cumulative total to 13 GW. But there's good reason to be skeptical of this outcome.

Permitting delays are slowing behind-the-meter data centers down

Permitting issues have delayed behind-the-meter data centers across the country. Earlier this year one of OpenAI and Oracle's signature Stargate projects experienced a major setback when the State of New Mexico blocked a planned gas pipeline that would have fueled the project's 2.45 GW onsite power plant. Our satellite analysis suggests the project is likely to miss its target of coming online in 2027.

In New Jersey, Microsoft's partner Nebius is struggling to obtain an air permit to run a 400 MW onsite gas power plant. The two companies signed a $17.4 billion deal in September 2025. The compute is scheduled to be delivered in 9 tranches, with 7 of them dependent on the onsite gas plant coming online in 2026.

In a scenario where many projects experience delays like this, cumulative behind-the-meter capacity could be as low as 5 GW by the end of 2027—compared to 13 GW if all projects with signed tenants meet their timelines.

How we identified projects and equipment

To identify behind-the-meter projects, Cleanview analyzed hundreds of permit documents, SEC filings, utility filings, and press releases. For each project, we tried to trace what equipment was actually being installed—not just what was being shared in a press release. Air quality permits, in particular, often list specific turbine models and capacities—details that reveal a developer's power strategy in ways that press releases do not. The result is a granular view of how data centers are actually getting built, and who is supplying the equipment to power them.

For each project, we analyzed high-resolution satellite images from Airbus in order to check the status. This helped us understand if a project's onsite generation project was under construction or not. We also used satellite images to review historical construction timelines for projects like Stargate Abilene in order to estimate future timelines for projects that have begun construction.

The status of behind-the-meter data center projects

The behind-the-meter market barely existed before 2025. Of the roughly 90 GW of capacity we've identified, 92% was announced in 2025 or later. Developers announced nearly 57 GW across 39 projects in 2025 alone, a pace that has continued into 2026, with another 26 GW announced across 11 projects through May. The surge reflects how quickly the industry consensus shifted: what began as an improvised workaround at Colossus in mid-2024 became, within a year, a common power strategy for the largest AI data centers in the country.

While the behind-the-meter data center market is enormous on paper, it's still nascent in practice. Of the roughly 90 GW of generation capacity we've identified across all projects, only about 2 GW is actually operating today—2.2% of the total. 1.2% is under construction. Another 36% has been permitted, and the remaining 60% exists only as announcements or early-stage plans. The gap between what's been promised and what's producing electrons is a defining feature of this market right now.

What's operating today

As of mid-2026, approximately 2 GW of behind-the-meter generation capacity is online across four projects. The vast majority of that belongs to xAI. Colossus 1 and 2 outside Memphis account for 1,498 MW of operating gas turbine capacity — a figure that has grown steadily as xAI added dozens of temporary mobile turbines at the Southaven power plant site.

Satellite image of Colossus 2's behind-the-meter power at the site of the old Southaven Power Plant. Captured May 13, 2026. © Airbus DS (2026)

Stargate Abilene adds another 360 MW from 10 turbines that Crusoe completed in January 2026. The remainder comes from Vantage's 132 MW facility in Sterling, Virginia.

What's coming online this year

By the end of 2026, total operating capacity should grow to between 2.8 and 3.2 GW. The largest additions will come from Meta's Socrates South and Socrates North campuses in New Albany, Ohio, where Williams is building twin 200 MW power plants — a combined 400 MW expected to be in service by Q3 2026. EdgeConneX's first phase in New Albany should add another 126 MW from its Jenbacher engine installation, with 18 of 32 engines already visible in satellite images as of May.

The Vineland project is expected to bring 300-400 MW online before year-end. But there's significant uncertainty in this project's timeline due to permitting issues that we've detailed below in the case study on this project.

The 2027 buildout

In 2027, we estimate that more than 10 GW of new behind-the-meter capacity could come online. But the range of outcomes is wide, and the confidence level varies significantly by project. We break this forecast into three tiers.

Projects under construction (~7.8 GW). The highest-confidence tier includes projects where construction is visibly underway and key equipment has been ordered or is being installed. The two largest are Stargate projects: Project Jupiter in New Mexico, where Oracle and OpenAI plan to deploy 2.45 GW of Bloom fuel cells, and Project Frontier in Texas, where VoltaGrid is installing 2.58 GW of Jenbacher engines across 10 power blocks. Both are massive undertakings. Jupiter still hadn't begun vertical construction as of April 2026, making a full 2027 completion unlikely — first buildings may come online by mid-2027, but the full project probably extends into 2028. Frontier is further along, with five buildings in vertical construction, though the bulk of its power is unlikely to flow until 2027.

The rest of the under-construction tier includes Meta's Bowling Green facility (350 MW from Williams, targeting mid-2027), the second phase of EdgeConneX New Albany (216 MW), Crusoe's additional turbine deployments at Stargate Abilene or other sites (840 MW), Meta's Enchanted Rock microgrid in El Paso (366 MW), the Delta Gigasite (300 MW), and Project Jade in Wyoming (900 MW of Bloom fuel cells).

Note: In this section, when we say projects are under construction, we are referring to the entire data center project, not the power project specifically. For example, Stargate Project Frontier is well underway, but power generation equipment still isn't visible in satellite images.

Signed tenant (~2.9 GW). A second tier includes projects with confirmed customer agreements but where construction timelines are less certain. The Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia — where Microsoft and Nscale signed a deal for 1.35 GW of the facility's planned 2 GW first phase — expects power by 2027, but the sheer scale of the Caterpillar engine deployment (thousands of units) introduces significant execution risk. Crusoe's Goodnight campus for Google would add another 933 MW. Google has confirmed the partnership, though it hasn't publicly committed to an offtake agreement for the gas plant.

Less certain. Several additional projects could deliver power in 2027 but face significant uncertainty around tenants, permitting, or construction timelines. Homer City in Pennsylvania — at 4.5 GW one of the largest single-site projects in the country — expects its first turbines to arrive in June 2026 and first power by 2027, but the full buildout likely extends to 2029. Homer City still hasn't announced an anchor tenant. Joule's Utah campus has 455 MW of equipment available by late 2026, but building shells won't be ready until 2027 and no tenant has been signed. Vantage's Millersport campus needs to refile its 1.3 GW permit with the Ohio Power Siting Board. And the Nexus Hubbard project in Texas has a rumored deal with Anthropic but nothing confirmed publicly.

Why developers are avoiding the grid

Interconnection timelines are getting longer

The primary reason developers are building their own generation is due to the time it takes to connect to the power grid. In Virginia's "Data Center Alley", it now takes as long as 7 years to connect a data center to the grid.

In Ohio, AEP Ohio instituted a complete moratorium on new data center agreements in March 2023 to allow its transmission planning group to study the impacts of an anticipated 30,000 MW of additional load. The moratorium was lifted in July 2025 with new tariff rules. But the moratorium sent a clear message to developers that connecting a data center would take a long time.

In Texas, grid operator ERCOT reported approximately 226 GW of large load customers in its interconnection queue as of November—nearly quadruple the 63 GW reported at the end of 2024. Many developers are now proposing projects with operational dates in the 2028–2030+ range as the queue grows and studies take longer than initially expected.

Multi-year delays can cost billions

AI data centers can generate $10–12 million per MW annually, or $10–12 billion per GW. Bringing a data center online even a few years early could result in tens of billions in revenue that would otherwise be forgone.

A recent deal between Nebius and Microsoft for capacity at the Vineland data center in New Jersey that we feature below illustrates these economics. In September 2025, Microsoft signed a deal with Nebius for $17.4 billion over 5 years for 300 MW of GPU capacity at the Vineland data center. That works out to $11.6 million per year per MW.

Capacity constraints are also throttling tech companies' cloud revenue. In November 2025, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, "I don't have warm shells [data center buildings] to plug into... you may actually have a bunch of chips sitting in inventory that I can't plug in." Hence why the company is signing deals with GPU providers like Nebius.

Demand for compute continues to accelerate

Scaling laws—the principle that more compute used to train a model yields greater intelligence and capability—continue to motivate the industry to build larger, centralized data centers. Today training models requires all compute to be centrally located to reduce latency.

On the inference side, demand is also growing. Reasoning models consume more tokens per query, and image and video models are more compute-intensive than text-only models. Google processed 980 trillion tokens in October 2025—double the rate from May.

AI adoption at companies continues to rise as well. The share of companies using AI doubled from 5% to 10% between 2024 and 2025, according to Census business surveys.

All of this demand for compute results in more power demand.

The Colossus effect

In 2024, Elon Musk's xAI built one of the world's largest data centers in Tennessee in just four months—a timeline that likely encouraged many companies to pursue behind-the-meter strategies that would have been unthinkable previously. As we'll cover in the detailed case study of Colossus below, xAI used mobile power generators to generate hundreds of megawatts of capacity in record time.

Had Musk built the same facility in Virginia using traditional grid interconnection, it would have come online in 2031. By pursuing a controversial behind-the-meter approach, he brought the first GPUs online in a fraction of that time.

The project drew intense criticism from the local community and officials, but in Silicon Valley, it was widely noted. This may have been a key catalyst for the growth of self-generation strategies in 2025.

Where are developers building their own generation?

Just five states account for 83% of all proposed BTM capacity. Two patterns stand out among top states: proximity to major natural gas production regions and regulatory frameworks that favor rapid development.

Texas leads by a wide margin, driven by Permian Basin gas supply, extensive pipeline infrastructure, and the state's permissive regulatory environment. A recent policy change may have also accelerated the trend of behind-the-meter generation in Texas. In June 2025, Texas passed SB6—a "kill switch" law that lets ERCOT disconnect large loads over 75 MW during grid stress.

Ohio leads the country in behind-the-meter capacity under construction with projects from Meta and EdgeConneX that will add a combined 736 MW of gas generation capacity. Both projects are located within miles of each other in the New Albany Business Park east of Columbus. The trend is partly a response to AEP Ohio's inability to keep pace with demand: The utility cannot build new power plants under state law, and its 2025 data center tariff requires operators to pay for at least 85% of requested capacity for 12 years. House Bill 15, signed in 2025, created a fast-track 45-day approval process for behind-the-meter generation facilities with no public notice, no public hearing, and no required consultation with local officials. Ohio's proximity to the Utica Shale provides a ready fuel source for these projects.

Pennsylvania's two projects sit atop the Marcellus Shale, the largest U.S. gas production region, accounting for 31% of national output. Producers in the basin are increasingly pivoting to serve in-basin data center demand directly.

New Mexico has attracted developers through aggressive incentives. Doña Ana County approved $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds for Project Jupiter—more than the state's entire GDP—along with a 30-year property tax abatement. The state also passed HB93 in 2025, which allows microgrid operators to bypass the Energy Transition Act's renewable energy requirements.

Wyoming offers no corporate or personal income tax, cheap power, and minimal regulation. Governor Mark Gordon has said the state aims to "innovate rather than regulate our way into the future." Developers have also found ways to accelerate timelines: rather than face the 18-month Industrial Siting Act review process, some are siting projects in pre-existing industrial parks to avoid it entirely. Crusoe's Project Jade, recently approved for up to 10 GW, could become one of the largest data centers in the country.

How are developers securing power generation equipment?

Developers pursuing their own power generation have adopted a range of strategies, from mobile generators that can be deployed in weeks to repurposing airplane engines. Developers are buying equipment from manufacturers and markets that have never served data centers before.

All of these generation strategies would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Few of the technologies listed below were designed to generate power nearly 24/7 for years at a time. They are often less efficient and therefore more costly per megawatt hour of electricity generated. Developers also have to navigate the headaches that come with providing reliable power, which has traditionally been the role of utilities.

But all of the strategies offer a faster path to first power, which is why they are being pursued.

Mobile gas generators and microgrids

The mobile generator strategy was pioneered by xAI at Colossus in Memphis. Facing utility timelines that stretched into years, Elon Musk's team brought in mobile gas generators from VoltaGrid starting in June 2024, energizing the first GPU cluster by early September—a timeline of roughly four months from site work to power-on. The approach was controversial but effective, and it inspired a wave of similar projects.

VoltaGrid has since become a major player in this space. Oracle announced a 2.3 GW deal with VoltaGrid in October 2025 to supply natural gas power infrastructure across its Texas AI data centers, including the Stargate Frontier campus. The project will use a staggering 620 Jenbacher reciprocating internal combustion engines (RICE) rated at between 3-5 MW each. VoltaGrid's model pairs high-speed gas engines with rapid deployment: generators can arrive on trailers and begin producing power while permanent infrastructure is still being built.

Meta is taking a similar approach through a different partner. At its El Paso data center, Meta worked with El Paso Electric to contract with Enchanted Rock, a Houston-based microgrid provider, to build a 366 MW natural gas generation facility. The facility will use 813 modular generators—almost certainly Enchanted Rock's ERT500 units built by Generac—each producing 450 kW. For the first five years, this capacity will operate entirely off-grid, dedicated solely to Meta's data center, before potentially integrating with El Paso Electric's transmission system.

Aeroderivative turbines

Aeroderivative gas turbines—smaller, lighter turbines derived from aircraft jet engine technology—have emerged as a favored choice for data center operators who need power quickly and want flexibility. These turbines can be deployed faster than heavy-frame industrial turbines and offer the modularity that data centers need for N+1 redundancy.

Crusoe, the developer behind OpenAI's first Stargate project in Abilene, has become the largest buyer of aeroderivative turbines in the data center sector. The company ordered 10 GE Vernova LM2500XPRESS units in December 2024, then followed with 19 more in June 2025, bringing its total to 29 units and nearly 1 GW of capacity. These turbines are being deployed at Stargate Abilene alongside Caterpillar Solar Titan 350 units, enabling the site to begin large training runs before the full grid interconnection is complete.

Satellite image of Stargate Abilene. Captured April 13, 2026. © Airbus DS (2026)

In December 2025, Crusoe placed an even more unusual order: 29 turbines from Boom Supersonic, the company developing supersonic passenger aircraft. Boom's "Superpower" turbines are derived from its Symphony jet engine and deliver 42 MW each in a shipping container-sized package—totaling 1.21 GW for $1.25 billion. The deal grew out of a conversation between Boom's CEO and Sam Altman and Crusoe CEO Cully Cavness, who explained that they had "bought all the turbines we can get" and still had racks of GPUs with nothing to plug them into. First deliveries are expected in 2027, with Boom targeting production of 4 GW annually by 2030.

Caterpillar's mega deals

While much attention has focused on turbine orders from GE Vernova and Siemens, Caterpillar has quietly secured some of the largest equipment deals in the sector—not for turbines, but for natural gas reciprocating engines. These generator sets offer a different value proposition: rapid response times (measured in seconds rather than minutes), modular deployment, and the ability to scale capacity by adding units.

At the Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia, American Intelligence & Power Corporation ordered 2 GW of Caterpillar G3516 generator sets in January 2026. Deliveries are scheduled from September 2026 through August 2027, with battery storage supplementing the gas generation to handle even faster load swings.

In Utah, Joule Capital Partners announced a similar 4 GW deal for its data center campus in Millard County. Joule is using Caterpillar G3520K generator sets, with first equipment delivery scheduled for March 2026 and 455 MW targeted by Q4 2026. The company's phasing plan is aggressive: 1.4 GW by 2027, 5.8 GW by 2029, and 12 GW by 2032. Both projects will operate entirely off-grid, generating all power on-site with no utility connection.

Caterpillar engines offered by the company's subsidiary Solar Turbines will also be deployed at data centers around the country. We identified 122 permitted Solar Turbines installations with a combined capacity of 2.7 GW. Dozens of Solar Turbines have already been installed at Colossus 1 and 2 outside of Memphis. Another 18 are currently under construction at Meta's Socrates North and South data centers.

Satellite image of Colossus 1 in Memphis, TN. Captured May 13, 2026. © Airbus DS (2026)

These deals help explain why Caterpillar leads the behind-the-meter market with 33% market share, according to OEMs and equipment we've identified.

Bloom fuel cells

Solid oxide fuel cells have emerged as an alternative to combustion-based generation, offering lower emissions and the potential to run on hydrogen in the future. Bloom Energy, the leading manufacturer, has secured several major data center deals.

Crusoe's Project Jade in Wyoming—a 2.7 GW campus being developed with Tallgrass—will include up to 900 MW of Bloom Energy solid oxide fuel cells alongside approximately 1.8 GW of natural gas turbines. American Electric Power appears to be involved in the fuel cell procurement, having exercised a $2.65 billion option with Bloom in early January 2026, though the companies haven't confirmed the connection publicly.

Oracle and BorderPlex Digital Assets announced in late April 2026 that they would replace the site's previously planned gas turbines and diesel generators entirely with up to 2.45 GW of Bloom solid oxide fuel cells. The deal falls under Oracle's broader expanded partnership with Bloom, which covers up to 2.8 GW of total capacity—1.2 GW of which was already under contract. The switch was driven in part by community opposition to the original combustion-based power plan; Bloom's fuel cells reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by roughly 92% compared to turbines and eliminate the water consumption associated with conventional thermal generation.

Most recently, neocloud Nebius signed a 10-year master agreement with Bloom in May 2026 worth up to $2.6 billion in service fees. The first phase calls for 328 MW of installed capacity (approximately 250 MW guaranteed) at an undisclosed U.S. site, with operations expected to begin later this year. The fuel cells are likely to end up at the Vineland data center in New Jersey, where the company has faced community opposition and permitting delays due to its planned use of 400 MW of natural gas engines from Bergen.

Refurbished turbines

With new turbine lead times stretching beyond 2029 in some cases, some developers have turned to the secondary market—acquiring used or surplus equipment and refurbishing it for data center use.

Fermi America, the Texas-based company behind Project Matador, acquired three GE Frame 6B gas turbines and one steam turbine from a heavy industrial operation in New Jersey. The gas turbines produce 135 MW in simple cycle mode, with plans to add heat recovery steam generators to enable combined cycle operation at over 200 MW. Fermi also purchased six new-in-crate Siemens SGT800 turbines from Firebird LNG, rated at 478 MW—equipment that had been ordered for a different project and became available.

Crusoe plans to deploy repurposed engines once used in Boeing 747s at its Goodnight Campus in Texas. Permits we obtained show plans to use 13 ProEnergy 6000PE turbines alongside 7 Dynamis Power Solutions turbines. ProEnergy buys old Boeing 747 engines and then repurposes them as 50 MW gas power turbines.

Beyond the commercial market, there's a much larger theoretical supply: retired military aircraft. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the engines from aircraft at the Air Force's "Boneyard" facility at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base could represent up to 40 GW of electricity generating capacity. However, the EIA notes significant practical caveats: the engines have been retired for more than a decade on average, their condition is unclear, and there are military mission considerations and logistics challenges around removal and conversion. Still, with approximately 1,000 aircraft engines expected to be retired over the next decade, this represents a potential supply source that several companies are actively exploring.

Which companies are supplying the most power equipment?

Five manufacturers account for nearly all of the behind-the-meter generation capacity we've identified. Together, they represent 94% of the market by permitted or installed megawatts.

Caterpillar

Caterpillar's dominance comes from two distinct product lines. Through its subsidiary Solar Turbines, Caterpillar offers a range of aeroderivative gas turbines from the 16.5 MW Titan 130 to the 38 MW Titan 350. Solar Turbines units are already operating at Colossus and under construction at Meta's Socrates campuses and Bowling Green data center. We identified 122 permitted Solar Turbines installations across the country with a combined capacity of 2.7 GW.

Satellite image of Meta's Socrates South power plant in New Albany, OH. Captured April 7, 2026. © Airbus DS (2026)

But the bigger volume driver is Caterpillar's reciprocating engine line—particularly the G3516 and G3520K generator sets. These engines are smaller (roughly 2 MW each), which means projects need hundreds of them, but they offer something turbines can't: sub-10-second start times and true black-start capability without supplemental equipment. The Monarch and Joule campuses alone account for 6 GW of Caterpillar reciprocating engine orders. These massive deals, combined with the steady deployment of Solar Turbines across dozens of smaller projects, explain how Caterpillar captured a third of the market.

It's worth noting that Caterpillar's reciprocating engines have never been deployed at the scale envisioned by mega projects like Monarch and Joule. As a result, these projects are likely to face higher execution risk.

GE Vernova

GE Vernova holds a nearly equal share to Caterpillar but with very different equipment. The company's TM2500 mobile gas turbine—a 35 MW trailer-mounted power plant derived from the LM2500 marine engine—has become the workhorse of the fast-deployment market. GE says it can install a TM2500 in 14 days, and the company has shipped over 350 units worldwide. xAI has deployed dozens of TM2500s at Colossus, according to our satellite analysis.

For permanent installations, GE's larger LM6000 turbine (roughly 47 MW each) is the anchor of several major projects, including Crusoe's Goodnight campus for Google, where 20 LM6000 units will supply 933 MW of generation capacity. GE also supplies the LM2500XPRESS, a faster-deploying variant of the LM2500 platform that Crusoe ordered in bulk for Stargate Abilene.

Bloom Energy

Bloom Energy's 14% market share is remarkable for a company selling solid oxide fuel cells rather than combustion equipment. Bloom's growth in this market is almost entirely a story of two relationships: Oracle and Nebius. The Oracle partnership alone accounts for up to 2.8 GW under a master services agreement, with 2.45 GW earmarked for Project Jupiter. Bloom's fuel cells emit roughly 92% less nitrogen oxide than gas turbines, which has made them attractive in markets where community opposition has stalled combustion-based plans.

The challenge for Bloom is manufacturing capacity. The company currently produces 1 GW per year and plans to reach 2 GW by the end of 2026—a pace that would still take years to fulfill its backlog. That constraint may limit Bloom's market share growth even as demand for lower-emission alternatives increases.

INNIO Jenbacher

INNIO Jenbacher engines will power VoltaGrid's massive deployment at Stargate Frontier, where 620 units will supply 2.58 GW across 10 power blocks. The J624 (4.5 MW) and J620 (3.3 MW) are high-speed reciprocating gas engines that occupy a middle ground between Caterpillar's smaller generator sets and aeroderivative turbines—large enough to limit unit count but small enough for modular deployment. EdgeConneX is also using Jenbacher engines at its New Albany campus, where 32 units will deliver 120 MW in the first phase.

Jenbacher's market share is concentrated in a small number of very large projects. If VoltaGrid continues to win deployments at this scale, INNIO's share could grow significantly. But the company's position is more dependent on a single channel partner than any other OEM on this list.

ProEnergy

ProEnergy occupies perhaps the most unusual niche in the market: repurposing aircraft engines for stationary power generation. The company's PE6000 turbine is built around overhauled CF6-80C2 engine cores—the same units found in Boeing 747s—repackaged to deliver 50 MW per unit. ProEnergy units are permitted at Colossus 2 and Crusoe's Goodnight campus, where 13 ProEnergy-packaged LM6000 turbines will be part of the 933 MW gas plant. With new turbine lead times from major OEMs stretching past 2028, ProEnergy's ability to source engines from the secondary aviation market gives it a supply advantage that larger manufacturers can't easily replicate.

Patterns in behind-the-meter data center power strategies

Across the projects we reviewed, several patterns emerged in how data center developers are approaching their power strategies. These aren't universal—there are exceptions to each—but they reflect the dominant logic shaping the sector right now.

Behind the meter now, grid later

The most striking pattern is that companies are building their own generation capacity first, then pursuing grid connections as a secondary or later-stage strategy. This inverts the traditional model, where a data center would sign a utility agreement, wait for grid infrastructure to be built, and only then come online.

Meta is pursuing this strategy at multiple projects across the country. At the company's El Paso data center, a 366 MW Enchanted Rock generation facility will operate entirely off-grid for the first five years, dedicated solely to Meta's data center. After that bridge period El Paso Electric will likely seek approval to connect the facility to its transmission system.

In Bowling Green, Ohio, Williams is building an islanded gas power plant for Meta as a part of a 10-year energy service agreement. Williams plans to install a combination of Solar Turbines and Siemens turbines alongside 176 Tesla Megapack 2XL containers providing 678 MWh / 339 MW of capacity. The 350 MW facility is expected to come online in the summer of 2027.

But satellite analysis shows that the site is within a few hundred feet of a large FirstEnergy substation. In January 2025, Meta wrote a letter to local policymakers saying the company "will pay for millions of dollars in new energy infrastructure investments—network upgrades, utility substations, and transmission lines—that will directly benefit our data center." This suggests the company will eventually connect its data center to the grid.

Training workloads tolerate more risk

One reason behind-the-meter power works for AI data centers is that training workloads have different reliability requirements than inference. When a model is being trained, a brief interruption is costly but recoverable—the training run can checkpoint and resume. When a model is serving live inference requests, an outage means customers lose access to the product.

Stargate Abilene illustrates this dynamic. The company is building approximately 1 GW of onsite gas generation—29 GE Vernova LM2500XPRESS turbines plus Caterpillar Solar Titan 350 units—to begin serving large training runs before the full grid interconnection is complete. Training doesn't require the same uptime guarantees as inference. Once the grid connection scales up and proves reliable, the gas turbines can shift to backup duty.

This dynamic helps explain why so many of the largest behind-the-meter projects are being built for training-focused customers like OpenAI. The economics of training—where speed to capacity matters more than five-nines reliability—make behind-the-meter generation a viable bridge strategy in a way that might not work for inference-heavy workloads.

Avoiding heavy-duty turbines (and their lead times)

GE Vernova, Siemens, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries control roughly 80% of the market for the largest, most efficient combined-cycle gas turbines. When a utility builds a new baseload power plant, these are typically what they buy. But lead times for these turbines have exploded in recent years. In some cases, customers must wait until the early 2030s to receive a heavy-duty combined cycle turbine.

This helps explain why only one of the behind-the-meter data center projects we reviewed plans to use heavy-duty turbines onsite. Everyone else is pursuing strategies that rely on different technologies.

Time to power isn't the only factor in a developer's decision-making process. Data centers typically build with N+1 or N+2 redundancy—if one piece of equipment goes down, they want to continue serving their full IT load. A single 400 MW heavy-frame turbine offers no redundancy; twenty 20 MW aeroderivative units or reciprocating engines offer many more ways to design around failures.

Another advantage of smaller turbines is the speed of installation. Some mobile gas generator companies claim they can install power generation equipment in weeks. Heavy-duty turbines by comparison generally take 1-2 years to install.

There's a final advantage: if these data centers eventually connect to the grid, their onsite generators can serve as backup power, eliminating the need for the diesel generator sets that traditional data centers use for emergency power.

Pairing gas with batteries

Many gas-powered behind-the-meter projects we reviewed include battery storage as a key component—not as backup, but as an active part of the power system. AI training loads can spike and drop faster than any combustion-based generator can follow. Batteries can respond in milliseconds. By pairing gas generation with battery storage, these facilities can match their power output to their IT load without stressing their generation equipment or risking damage from rapid cycling.

At Colossus, Tesla has sold approximately $430 million in Megapack batteries to xAI, with a target of roughly 1 GW of battery capacity by our estimate. By May 2025, the site had already deployed 324 MW. The batteries work alongside the gas turbines and reciprocating engines, providing faster response than even the quickest gas equipment.

Both of Caterpillar's mega-deals—Monarch in West Virginia and Joule in Utah—mention large-scale battery systems even though the Caterpillar G3516 and G3520K generator sets are among the fastest-responding gas equipment available, capable of ramping from zero to full load in approximately seven seconds. Joule's project plans to include 1.1 GWh of grid-forming battery storage. Monarch describes batteries as essential for "handling rapid AI load swings."

In Ohio, all of the power plants that Williams is building for Meta will feature extensive Tesla Megapack deployments. As an example, the Bowling Green data center will feature 176 Tesla Megapack 2XL containers providing 678 MWh / 339 MW of capacity. We couldn't find permits showing battery plans for Meta's New Albany projects (Socrates South and North), but we did see satellite evidence that the company is deploying storage containers near the gas generation equipment.

Satellite image of Meta's Socrates South power plant in New Albany, OH. Captured April 7, 2026. © Airbus DS (2026)

Gas and batteries now, clean energy later

A recurring theme in press releases and public statements is the promise of clean energy—renewables, hydrogen, nuclear. But when you look at what's actually being built first, it's almost always natural gas.

Fermi America describes its strategy as "all of the above" and has announced plans for four Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors with a combined capacity of 4.5 GW. But those reactors are years away from permitting, let alone operation. Mockups of the data center show huge wind turbines, solar arrays, and batteries. But we couldn't find any deals between Fermi and clean energy developers. The company's first 2 GW of generation capacity is 100% natural gas.

Project Jupiter in New Mexico has committed to building 500 MW of renewables by 2028 and another 500 MW by 2032—but construction began in 2025 with dual natural gas microgrids producing up to 2.2 GW.

Meta's Prometheus campus in Ohio is another example. The company has announced nuclear deals with Vistra (2.1 GW from existing plants), Oklo (a 1.2 GW campus potentially online around 2030), and TerraPower. But what's actually under construction in 2025-2026 is the Socrates natural gas facility—400 MW of gas turbines and reciprocating engines built by Williams, with no grid connection at all.

---

Project case studies

Detailed case studies for 15 behind-the-meter data center projects, including equipment details, satellite imagery analysis, construction timelines, and regulatory context.