CERAWeek 2026: Leadership Takeaways on Power, Policy, and Delivery Timelines

Bill: This year is all about AI and the electricity needed to power AI.  Along with AI-driven data centers, electrification and reshoring of manufacturing are driving ferocious demand.  And supply is working hard to catch up. In the U.S., commercial electricity sales are expected to rise sharply in the next two years, due largely to data center demand, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The consensus is that electricity demand upcycle will continue for at least the next 10 years.

Meeting that requires dispatchable, high-efficiency thermal capacity. Advanced gas turbines remain one of the most cost-effective ways to deliver that reliability at scale. If you want growth today, start with power that performs under stress.

Speed to power is very important to hyperscalers and has become a defining market force. They are keenly focused on how quickly they can get electrons flowing and are willing to take action to make that happen. Our role is to support them in that journey, make informed recommendations, and work closely with our customers to deliver excellent service and technology.

Christy: What stood out to me was how central reliability has become to economic decision-making. Companies are making billion-dollar investments based on when power will be available – not just how much. That shifts the entire risk conversation.

We’re operating at an unprecedented level of demand, and that means contracts must anticipate supply-chain failures, labor constraints, and geopolitical disruptions before they happen. I’ve been doing this for nearly 25 years, and I’ve never seen a perfect power project. The difference isn’t whether challenges arise, it’s how transparently and quickly they’re addressed.

Previously in the power generation market, one of the things that we saw was that projects were typically scheduled out well in advance, so the schedules weren't overall that challenging. They certainly moved at a strong pace, but nothing like the pace that we are seeing today. So having a realistic understanding of when a project can be delivered is certainly a shift in what we're seeing in the market.

Speed matters, but it can’t come at the expense of safety or quality. The pressure to accelerate timelines is clear, but so is the shared understanding that worker safety and training cannot be compromised.

Bill: Decarbonization strategy is fundamentally a sequencing challenge. The industry needs electrons today, with a credible path to lower emissions tomorrow. I heard a lot of interest in nuclear emerging as the holy grail of clean generation, but there are still challenges with affordability and delivery schedules. Nuclear is not going to make a big dent in the next decade. Throughout the week, I heard intense focus on dependable thermal power, not as a step backwards, but as an enabler of renewables and battery energy storage at scale.

Moreover, optionality matters. Hydrogen-ready turbines and carbon capture provide flexibility as policy and markets evolve. Innovation discussed at CERAWeek extended beyond technology to business models, risk allocation, and partnership structures that enable projects to move forward with both reliability and decarbonization in view.

For example, we’ve already validated 50% hydrogen blending in our advanced class turbines, delivering a 22% drop in CO2 emissions compared to 100% natural gas. That’s the kind of practical progress that allows customers to deploy projects now, with a credible pathway to lower emissions over time.

Christy: In the decarbonization discussions at CERAWeek, there’s still clear alignment around long-term goals. It's really being driven by the owners and the off-takers who are committed to a carbon-neutral future, and the ambitions of companies such as Mitsubishi Power – we are committed to a carbon-neutral future as well. But there was also realism. Reliable power remains foundational to economic growth, and that includes gas generation.

What I heard throughout the week is that the question isn’t whether we move toward lower emissions, it’s how we do so responsibly and pragmatically. Legal, regulatory, and contractual frameworks ultimately shape what’s achievable in the near term. We certainly still have our net-zero ambitions, but we also need to have pragmatic, realistic, reliable, dispatchable energy today.

Bill: Execution has become the differentiator. Skilled labor shortages, long-lead components, and manufacturing constraints are converging. Customers want roadmaps with credible in-service dates, speed to power, and delivery certainty, without losing sight of long-term decarbonization goals.  

Our response sees a focus on three “phases,” all of which work in concert with one another. Visually, think more like a Venn diagram. We decided to approach it this way because we know that, generally speaking, this market is here for the next decade. It was important to us from partnership and leadership perspectives to break the journey into tangible segments that can be identified, planned out, and actioned on. It’s one thing to meet today’s demand. It’s another for us to be prepared to support the commercial side for the long lifecycles of our equipment.  

In phase one, which we characterize as what we’ve seen over the past 18–24 months, we’ve witnessed that this demand growth is real, commercialized, and has contracted a significant volume of new work. If you look at the number of large-frame turbines (those that are 100 MW and above), 3.1 GW were sold in the Americas in 2023 and about 40 GW in 2025, so more than 12x growth has been realized. 

Phase two is all about disciplined execution — delivering projects on schedule despite labor and supply-chain constraints. It’s really about trying to standardize and making sure we have the supply chain lined up to support our ability to deliver on our promises to customers. 

While we execute in phase two for many customers, we’ve also all got our eyes on phase three, which is about what’s next: investing in automation, innovation, and manufacturing capacity to shorten lead times and support sustainable growth while meeting near-term demand. The big questions for projects this year are ‘Do you have an EPC contractor and do you have sufficient labor to support it?’ Developing that next cohort of the workforce has been a huge topic all week. 

These different phases just represent where our customers are at in their power generation journey. We know the pain points and challenges that they face no matter where they are in the story.

Christy: Supply-chain conversations were intense, and rightly so. Any discussion of energy must consider policy, geopolitics, and execution risk, and these themes were certainly front and center. Everyone recognizes that we are in a new world today. It’s critical to understand what the risks are, where the supply chain operates, pricing drivers, and the impacts on projects going forward.

Across multiple discussions, the question kept coming up: are supply chains truly resilient, or are we just assuming they are? If a single-source supplier somewhere in the world faces disruption, whether from tariffs, geopolitics, or material constraints, entire projects can be affected. Visibility of all tiers of the supply chain is critical.

In today’s environment, rare-earth access, trade policy, and single-source manufacturing risks directly influence cost and timing. Contracts are not just back-office legal documents — they are the guideposts for how partners respond when those pressures materialize.

Bill: Execution has become the differentiator. Skilled labor shortages, long-lead components, and manufacturing constraints are converging. Customers want roadmaps with credible in-service dates, speed to power, and delivery certainty, without losing sight of long-term decarbonization goals.  

Our response sees a focus on three “phases,” all of which work in concert with one another. Visually, think more like a Venn diagram. We decided to approach it this way because we know that, generally speaking, this market is here for the next decade. It was important to us from partnership and leadership perspectives to break the journey into tangible segments that can be identified, planned out, and actioned on. It’s one thing to meet today’s demand. It’s another for us to be prepared to support the commercial side for the long lifecycles of our equipment.  

In phase one, which we characterize as what we’ve seen over the past 18–24 months, we’ve witnessed that this demand growth is real, commercialized, and has contracted a significant volume of new work. If you look at the number of large-frame turbines (those that are 100 MW and above), 6.1 GW were sold in the Americas in 2020 and about 40 GW in 2025, so more than 6x growth has been realized.  

Phase two is all about disciplined execution — delivering projects on schedule despite labor and supply-chain constraints. It’s really about trying to standardize and making sure we have the supply chain lined up to support our ability to deliver on our promises to customers. 

While we execute in phase two for many customers, we’ve also all got our eyes on phase three, which is about what’s next: investing in automation, innovation, and manufacturing capacity to shorten lead times and support sustainable growth while meeting near-term demand. The big questions for projects this year are ‘Do you have an EPC contractor and do you have sufficient labor to support it?’ Developing that next cohort of the workforce has been a huge topic all week. 

These different phases just represent where our customers are at in their power generation journey. We know the pain points and challenges that they face no matter where they are in the story. 

Christy: Today’s power projects are incredibly complex and are being impacted by the market changes we are seeing. That complexity requires shared visibility and understanding among multiple parties with intersecting risks and incentives. The conversations we had at CERAWeek emphasized that transparency and early identification of challenges is the differentiator in successful execution of work.

From my perspective in the world of contracting, one critical element is to have a contract that's really set up as a partnership and project execution focused. When issues arise — and they always do — you can approach the challenge collaboratively, or you can retreat into defensive positions. The first keeps projects moving. The second leads to disputes.”

Transparency, contracts, and legal frameworks along with consistent conversations are critical to navigating the volatile landscape. Partners must bring both technical capability and execution discipline. As reinforced by both long-term experience and perspective, disciplined execution and transparent partnership remain the anchor customers can plan around as the industry enters its next phase.

Bill: While the themes of CERAWeek may change year to year, they consistently validate the same energy leadership fundamentals that drive Mitsubishi Power: reliability, execution discipline, and innovation, not only in technology but in business models and partnerships.

Customers are operating in a fast-moving environment where demand growth, policy pressure, and execution risk collide. The practical implication of these CERAWeek insights is clear: affordability and speed to power must come first and decarbonization must be designed into systems without compromising delivery.