HOUSTON — During a weeklong energy conference here, where fossil fuel executives basked in the renewed outlook for gas, one tech giant CEO dropped a telling data point.
While Siemens has seen soaring demand for gas turbines — with production up 30 percent year over year — transmission lines have actually been the tech giant’s biggest area of growth, said CEO Christian Bruch.
It’s a reflection of what’s emerged as a major theme of this year’s CERAWeek by S&P Global conference: electricity-hungry data centers, new manufacturing, the electrification of transportation and a shifting population are all contributing to an unprecedented need for more power — of any and all kinds — as quickly as possible. The pressure has sped up discussions of how to upgrade an aging grid and whether the work comes in conflict with net-zero goals.
“I never liked this narrative of the energy transition to be something separate,” Bruch said. “What we’re trying to do is build a resilient energy supply system. What we are trying to do is meet the unprecedented growth in electricity.”
