Energy infrastructure • Power generation
Global Gas Power Plants
Natural gas-fired power generation facilities worldwide, from operating plants to announced projects. Gas plants serve as baseload, peaking, and grid-balancing capacity and are central to the energy transition as a lower-emission bridge from coal.
Source: Global Energy Monitor — Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker, CC BY 4.0
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Behind the dots
Gas's job is changing, and its queue is full
Gas made 21.8 percent of the world's electricity in 2025, and it was the only fossil fuel that grew, though its growth was a fraction of solar's[2]. What changed is the job description: in systems filling with cheap variable renewables, a gas plant is bought less for around-the-clock energy and more for firm, dispatchable capacity, the hours wind and solar do not cover.
The build pipeline says the bet is being made at scale. Gas capacity in development reached 1,047 GW in early 2026, up 31 percent in a year, and for the first time the United States (252 GW, driven visibly by data-centre demand) passed China as the largest developer[1]. The constraint is now the machine itself: GE Vernova alone expects an ~80 GW turbine backlog stretching into 2029 and reservations effectively sold out through 2030, with quoted lead times of three to four years[3].
◐ inferred A gas plant ordered today is therefore a late-decade asset priced on this decade's scarcity. The dots on this map are the installed base; the queue behind them, not the map, is where the market currently clears.
Sources (3)
- [1] Global Energy Monitor, Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker (CC BY 4.0): plant locations; January 2026 release: 1,047 GW of gas power in development globally (+31% in 2025), the US (252 GW) past China (153 GW) as top developer for the first time.
- [2] Ember, Global Electricity Review 2026: gas at 21.8% of global electricity in 2025, the only fossil fuel to grow; renewables passed coal for the first time.
- [3] Utility Dive (11 December 2025): GE Vernova expects an ~80 GW gas-turbine backlog into 2029 and reservations sold out through 2030 by end-2026.
Plant locations from GEM (CC BY 4.0). Shares from Ember's Global Electricity Review 2026; development pipeline from GEM's January 2026 tracker release; turbine backlog from GE Vernova's December 2025 investor update as reported. The closing read is this analyst's inference.