Technology group Wärtsilä will supply an off-grid energy power solution for a new data center facility under construction in Texas, USA. The 790 MW Texas power plant will operate with 42 Wärtsilä 50SG engines running on natural gas. By opting for a primary power source using Wärtsilä engines, the facility can ensure fast access to reliable power. The order was booked as intake by Wärtsilä in Q2 2026.
Texas is a key region for artificial intelligence model training and large-scale infrastructure buildout with an urgent need for power that the grid cannot currently adequately provide. Engines from Wärtsilä represent a proven, efficient, and reliable solution for the quickly evolving requirements of large-scale data center developments.
Wärtsilä’s engines were chosen ahead of other competing technologies for a variety of reasons including their ability to operate at full capacity, even in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately 38 degrees Celsius), a critical feature for optimized performance in Texas. Furthermore, with a heat rate of approximately 6,800 Btu/kWh (approx. 50% efficiency), Wärtsilä’s high-efficiency engines dramatically lower fuel costs and guarantee low plant emissions, which helps data center developers meet emissions requirements. This in turn allows for faster permitting within environmental and regulatory approvals.
“Wärtsilä’s primary power solutions offer significant benefits to data center developers by providing continuous, reliable primary power while using significantly less water and fuel than traditional alternatives. Also, our power solutions ramp up quickly and offer a dependable and sustainable foundation for delivering power availability, which is vital for AI and cloud operators. Our modular engine power plants allow easy capacity scale-ups, making them an ideal choice for the fast-growing data center market,” says Anders Lindberg, President of Wärtsilä Energy and Executive Vice President of Wärtsilä.
Texas offers a rare combination of deep natural gas supply, extensive energy infrastructure, and rapidly expanding renewable capacity – an ideal foundation for large-scale data center development. Wärtsilä’s flexible engine technology is ideally suited to this landscape, delivering reliable, dispatchable power while integrating seamlessly with renewable energy power sources. Together, Texas’ energy advantages and Wärtsilä’s proven engine platform enable data center developers to scale with confidence. And once a data center gets connected to the grid, it can be used to balance the renewables in the grid.
The Wärtsilä equipment is scheduled for delivery in 2028, and the plant is expected to become fully operational in late 2029. This is Wärtsilä’s fifth data center related order in the USA and its first in Texas. Altogether, Wärtsilä has thus far sold over 2,4 GW of power capacity for US data centers.
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