The investment firm absorbed an extensive quarterly loss after writing off nonrefundable deposits tied to natural gas equipment it overbooked by nearly 50 percent. While technology developers originally viewed gas turbines as a fast track to bypass grid delays, winter fuel curtailment risks have driven interest toward standard grid connections paired with battery storage. This slower-than-expected adoption has left surplus turbine reservations stranded. Nevertheless, broader demand remains sufficiently elevated to keep turbine manufacturing order queues filled into the next decade.
Key points
Data center developers are increasingly weighing fuel curtailment risks against the speed…: Data center developers are increasingly weighing fuel curtailment risks against the speed of deploying natural gas generation.
Combining standard electric grid access with large battery storage is emerging as an attr…: Combining standard electric grid access with large battery storage is emerging as an attractive alternative to dedicated gas turbines.
Aggressive speculation in energy hardware poses sharp financial risks even as overall pow…: Aggressive speculation in energy hardware poses sharp financial risks even as overall power demand for artificial intelligence accelerates.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
SoftBank might not be the first to invest in a hot trend, but when it does, it goes big.
Witness its $30 billion bet on OpenAI in early 2025 or its announcement in February that its SB Energy subsidiary would spend $33 billion on a 9.2-gigawatt natural gas power plant. If you can’t be first, be biggest, I guess.
That philosophy apparently spilled over into procurement, where orders were also supersized. Starting about two years ago, SoftBank reportedly put down deposits on more than 13 gigawatts of turbines, almost 50% more than it needed.
The decision to over-order undoubtedly helped secure turbines and speed up SoftBank’s projects.
“SB Energy did not have a choice except to overbook turbines in the future if they wanted some turbines right away,” Peter Gardett, CEO of Noreva, told TechCrunch via email.
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