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An increase in energy demand—not seen in 50 years—is changing the way steam plant operators develop their service strategies. Discover why more advanced planning has become a necessity.
Those of us that work in the power sector regularly hear the term “energy transition.” Primarily, it refers to efforts to reduce the carbon emissions in our industry’s generation, but its meaning is evolving.
In recent years, we’ve witnessed the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and its impact on our energy sector. Powering the data centers behind AI is already driving significant expansion of capacity across our generation and distribution infrastructures, which is projected to continue over the next decade.
We’re also seeing growing energy demand in parts of our increasingly-digitized economies. Electric vehicles (EVs) serve as a prime example.
In the US alone, EV sales shot up 21% between 2023-24. In the first quarter of 2025, year-over-year growth surpassed 11%. The bottom line: Projections show energy demand spiking for years to come, here in our Americas markets and to varying degrees through the rest of the world.
What do these macro trends mean for you?
My job is to underscore our Steam Power Services offerings as they contribute to the success of fossil plant operators like you. It’s also my responsibility to help you understand the broader context of what’s happening inside our organization, and the significance of what we’re seeing across the service provider community. These days, when I speak with customers about their operating strategies, one message stands out as most crucial: You need to extend your service planning timeline. Indeed, this reality also applies to your outage project planning, the most critical aspect of your overall service strategy.
Get in touch with one of our team members to begin planning your outage today.
Our team is diligently adapting our service platform to match the speed of the shifting landscape, but some of these efforts take more time than others. That’s why I’m counseling my customers to “meet us in the middle,” so to speak, and help ensure they receive all necessary support by initiating their outage planning with our team earlier than they have historically. This approach can help prevent numerous hurdles, including:
- Delays in parts and equipment delivery due to extended lead times
- Missing preferred outage scheduling windows, especially during peak season periods
- Project lags if service centers reach full capacity
An outage strategy for successful operations and peace of mind
I understand that a longer planning horizon can produce rising concerns around budget, resources, and other factors that impact your business and operating strategies. A major outage plan between 12 and 18 months ahead of the start date will help ensure that you have long lead parts ordered and have secured needed capacity in our service center network. Additionally, here are some priority actions we’re taking to support you:
- Strengthening our supply chain network: The recent announcement that Azad Engineering Limited will be providing steam turbine components to our business exemplifies how we’re expanding our network to help meet increasing demand. We’re also collaborating with existing suppliers to broaden their scopes and challenging them to accelerate their delivery of high-quality products. One of our US-based suppliers has already compressed its manufacturing/delivery time of select steam turbine blades by four months.
- Optimizing our outage process: This framework applies our global fleet experience to:
- Facilitate precision project scoping
- Expand on-site capabilities, like component machining, and reduce cycle time by eliminating shipping to service centers
- Predict unplanned service scope to minimize emergent work
- Uncover enhancement opportunities by analyzing comparable service histories and operating profiles
- Customizing fossil plant programs: For operators working on their retirement strategy, we’ve developed a custom run-to-retire asset management program. It provides an end-to-end framework—from understanding how much operating life your equipment has left to optimizing ROI over your site’s remaining life cycle.
- Deploying cutting-edge technologies: We apply advanced robotic inspection technologies to identify ‘hot spots’ of risk, particularly on aging equipment. For example, our MAGIC* generator inspection is an in-situ solution that uses high-intensity light and high-resolution cameras for visual analysis of stator core components, providing insights that underscore the areas of risk to address during your next outage.
Our industry has now reached levels of demand not seen in 50 years, with no sign of any impending reversal. That’s why our collaboration is crucial to your service strategy as we navigate this energy transition together. Visit our outage services webpage to learn more and reach out to begin planning your next outage.
Keith A. Berger
Sales Director, Eastern US
Keith has 30+ years of commercial experience across various segments of the energy sector. In his current role as Sales Director for Steam Power Services’ Eastern US region, he develops and executes sales strategy while leading a regional commercial team that helps deliver high quality services to fossil operators as an energy transition expert.
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