As every first Saturday of each month, welcome to this month’s edition of the GasTurbineHub Newsletter!

In today’s newsletter:

📈 The Skilled Workforce Shortage –  Quiet on the Surface, Critical Beneath.
🏭 Gas Turbine New Installations – Latest updates on projects and deployments.
⚙️ Gas Turbine Technology Developments – Innovations driving efficiency and performance.
🔥 Hydrogen Gas Turbines – Advancements in hydrogen-powered solutions.
🌍 Carbon Capture and Sequestration Projects – Key progress in reducing emissions.
📅 2025 Events Calendar – Upcoming industry events and opportunities to connect.

Let’s jump right in!  

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The Silent Emergency Undermining Gas Turbines

The gas turbine industry—powering vital operations across oil & gas, power generation, and energy-intensive industries like steel, cement, and refining—is quietly heading toward a crisis. From conventional turbines to hydrogen and CCUS-integrated systems, a growing scarcity of skilled professionals threatens the continuity of operations, safety, and the energy transition itself.

These machines are not plug-and-play. They demand deep, hands-on expertise to install, operate, service, and upgrade—expertise that’s rapidly disappearing. The workforce is aging, vocational pipelines are drying up, and cross-sector recruitment is proving insufficient to bridge the gap. While investment surges and ambitious project timelines are drawn up, the human capacity to execute them is shrinking.

This is the biggest elephant in the room—and yet the industry treats it like background noise. What are we doing about it? Nothing that could realistically solve this issue. If ignored, this shortage won’t just delay projects; it will stall decarbonisation plans, jeopardise plant reliability, and create severe regional imbalances in operational resilience. The sector is heading toward a cliff, and it’s approaching faster than most realise. 

What’s Driving the Breakdown?

• Vocational Decline: In China—a country that dominates global turbine manufacturing—graduates in upper secondary vocational energy and power tracks dropped by nearly 60% between 2014 and 2022 (IEA World Energy Employment 2024).

• Retirement Wave: One in three electro-engineering workers in the EU is aged 50 or older, while the average age of skilled tradespeople in the U.S. is 55+ (IEA World Energy Employment 2024). Additionally, nearly 50% of the current U.S. oil and gas workforce is over the age of 45, with many expected to retire in the next decade .

• Low Appeal, High Demands: Gas turbine roles are often physically intense, remote, and still carry a perception of being part of a “sunset industry.” These factors make the field unappealing to the incoming workforce. The industry’s public image, concerns over carbon emissions, and competition from the renewable energy sector further deter new talent .

• Non-Transferable Skills: Turbines are complex, safety-critical systems. While many clean energy roles are seeing talent crossovers, gas turbine operations and retrofits require niche expertise that cannot be developed overnight. The shift toward renewable energy has resulted in fewer people working in the oil and gas industry, and technological advancements and automation have led to a need for fewer workers .

• Demand Surge, Talent Shrink: 75% of energy firms surveyed by the IEA reported difficulty hiring qualified applicants, particularly for installation, repair, and manufacturing roles. Many firms admitted to lowering skill requirements just to fill vacancies (IEA World Energy Employment 2024). The U.S. oil and gas industry has seen employment decrease by approximately 7% over the past year, from about 152,000 workers in 2022 to around 141,000 by mid-2024 .

What’s at Stake

• Plant Performance and Reliability: Without experienced personnel, turbines are more prone to faults, longer downtimes, and safety risks. This affects LNG plants, combined-cycle power stations, and process industries alike.

• The Energy Transition Timeline: Turbines designed for hydrogen blending or CCUS retrofits need even more specialized capabilities. Delays in workforce readiness will stall net-zero roadmaps.

• Hard-to-Abate Industries Are at Risk: Cement, steel, refining—all rely heavily on gas turbines for heat and power. These sectors can’t decarbonize if turbine infrastructure can’t evolve.

• A Growing Global Divide: Emerging markets depend heavily on conventional turbines. Without local skilled labor, they’ll become increasingly reliant on outside expertise—expensive, scarce, and unsustainable.

• A Fragile Value Chain: The shortage of skilled hands is already disrupting operations and timelines. If left unresolved, it could cripple future competitiveness, safety standards, and investment confidence.

The Numbers Behind the Crisis

• Oil & gas supply jobs (2023): 12.4 million (+590,000 vs 2022)

• Conventional power generation jobs: –18,000 in 2023

• Installation & repair hiring difficulty: 37% of firms say it’s “very difficult”

• Vocational grads in China (energy & power): ↓ 60% (2014–2022)

• Skill match in energy transitions: Only ~50% of job losses in conventional roles can transfer to clean energy jobs without significant retraining

Looking Ahead: The skilled labor shortage is not a temporary bump—it’s a structural fault line in the foundation of the gas turbine industry. Reversing this trend will require more than reactive hiring or isolated initiatives. It demands long-term, coordinated strategies—ones that bring together end-users, OEMs, policymakers, educators, and service providers around a shared understanding of the challenge.

This newsletter is not just a call to awareness—it’s a call to start the conversation. Only by recognising this issue collectively can we begin to design solutions that match the scale of the problem. Sharing this article is not symbolic; it’s a step toward alignment. Because the sooner we get the right stakeholders around the same table, the sooner we can begin planning the workforce of tomorrow—before the expertise of today disappears.

Join the Conversation: Sign up for our newsletter to stay updated on developments in gas turbine technology and the energy sector.

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The Latest News in a Snapshot

Gas Turbine New Installations

• Mitsubishi Power Secures Two Groundbreaking Gas Turbine Orders for Saudi Arabia’s Rumah-1 and Al-Nairyah-1 Projects

  “Mitsubishi Power to supply six M501JAC gas turbines to deliver a combined output of 3.6 GW”
  Source: MHI Power (28 March, 2025)

• EnBW officially commissions one of Germany’s first hydrogen-ready gas turbine power plants

  “Against a backdrop of intensive policy debate on the legal framework for financing urgently needed investment in dispatchable power plant capacity, EnBW has officially commissioned one of Germany’s first hydrogen-ready gas turbine power plants at its Stuttgart-Münster site”
  Source: EnBW (11 April, 2025)

• GE Vernova’s HA-powered Goi Thermal Power Station adds 2.3 GW of electricity to contribute to the stable supply of electricity in Japan

  “The third block of Goi Thermal Power Station, powered by Japan’s first-ever 9HA.02 gas turbines, achieved commercial operation at the Chiba Prefecture, part of the Greater Tokyo Area”
  Source: GE Vernova (17 April, 2025)

• Duke Energy and GE Vernova announce significant arrangement for gas turbines and associated equipment

  “The arrangement between the companies includes a plan to advance specific projects for up to 11 7HA gas turbines consistent with Duke Energy’s integrated resource plans”
  Source: Duke Energy (24 April, 2025)

• Ansaldo Energia News: Contract Signed for the Construction of a CCGT Power Plant at the MVM Tisza Power Plant Ltd.’s Site in Tiszaújváros

  “Once commercial operation begins, the two-block, 1000-megawatt (MW) combined cycle gas turbine plant is expected to supply an average of 7,500 GWh of electricity annually to the Hungarian power grid”
  Source: Ansaldo Energia (01 May, 2025)

Gas Turbine Technology Developments

• Baker Hughes Installs Cordant Across Sinochem’s Chemical Plants

  “Sinochem contracted Baker Hughes to install its Cordant Asset Health digital solution at 10 chemical production facilities in China. This provides Sinochem’s diagnostics teams with centralized rotating equipment data to minimize unplanned downtime, identify failures proactively, and reduce production losses across the portfolio.“
  Source: Turbomachinery Magazine (07 April, 2025)

• Wet compression of gas turbines gets a second wind

  “Wet compression, also known as overspray, consists of injecting demineralized water in the form of tiny fog droplets into the inlet of a gas turbine electrical power generator to improve its power output and heat rate”

  Source: Power-Eng (15 April, 2025)

• GE Vernova debuts next evolution of upgrade to boost 9E.03 gas turbines capacity across the world

  “New AGP XPAND upgrade expected to boost the power output and efficiency of existing 9E.03 gas turbines across the world – this could lead to a cumulative increase of 5 gigawatts (GW) at the global level”

  Source: GE Vernova (28 April, 2025)

Hydrogen Gas Turbines

• SSE and Equinor’s first-of-a-kind hydrogen project advanced by Government

  “A first-of-a-kind project which would unite hydrogen production, storage and power generation in one location has been shortlisted by UK Government in a recent funding process”

  Source: SSE Thermal (07 April, 2025)

• Interview: All new Mitsubishi Power gas turbine projects in Europe are hydrogen ready, CEO says

  “Mitsubishi’s turbines are already capable of firing hydrogen mixes of up to 30%, with plans to achieve 100% hydrogen capabilities by 2030”

  Source: spglobal.com (14 April, 2025)

• Engie to spend another €40m to fully convert Dutch power plant to run on 50% hydrogen

  “The first of the two turbines had been converted to run on a blend of H₂ back in 2023, with the upgrade also increasing the efficiency of power generated via natural gas.”

  Source: Hydrogen Insight (29 April, 2025)

Carbon Capture and Sequestration Projects

• Calpine, ExxonMobil sign CO₂transportation and storage agreement for power generation project

  “ExxonMobil to transport and store up to 2 million metric tons per year of CO₂ from Calpine’s natural gas power generation facility“

  Source: ExxonMobil (23 April, 2025)

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Gas Turbine Related Events Happening in 2025

European HRSG Forum (EHF) 11th International Conference
Date: May 15-17, 2025
Location: Prato, Italy (In-person)
Organizer: European HRSG Forum
Website: EHF
Key Topics: Heat recovery steam generators, combined cycle plants, maintenance strategies.

7F Users Group Conference and Vendor Fair
Date: May 19-23, 2025
Location: Birmingham, Alabama, USA (In-person)
Organizer: 7F Users Group
Website: 7F Users Group
Key Topics: User experiences, maintenance practices, technology advancements in 7F gas turbines.

MEGAWatt 2025
Date: May 20-21, 2025
Location: Bergamo, Italy (In-person)
Organizer: MEGAWatt Expo Organizing Committee
Website: MEGAWatt
Key Topics: Gas and Steam Turbines, Alternative Fuels, Digitalisation, Grid Integration, and Market Integration.

LM2500 User Group Meeting
Date: June 3-5, 2025
Location: To Be Confirmed (In-person)
Organizer: ETN Global
Website: ETN Global Events
Key Topics: User experiences, maintenance practices, technical updates for LM2500 turbines.

ASME Turbo Expo 2025
Date: June 16-20, 2025
Location: Memphis, Tennessee, USA (In-person)
Organizer: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Website: ASME Turbo Expo
Key Topics: Gas turbine technology, propulsion engineering, energy solutions.

Legacy Turbine Users Group Third Annual Conference
Date: June 16-19, 2025
Location: USA (In-person)
Organizer: Legacy Turbine Users Group
Website: Legacy Turbine Users Group
Key Topics: Frame 5, 6B, and 7EA gas turbines, maintenance, operations.

AOG (Alstom Owners Group) Users Conference
Date: July 14-17, 2025
Location: Niagara Falls, New York, USA (In-person)
Organizer: AOG Users Group
Website: AOG Users
Key Topics: GT8, GT11N, N1, N2, GT13, GT24, GT26.

HRSG Forum 2025 – Heat Recovery Steam Generator Users Conference
Date: July 21-24, 2025
Location: The Woodlands (Houston), Texas, USA (In-person)
Organizer: HRSG Forum
Website: powerusers.org
Key Topics: HRSG Tube Failures, Water Treatment, HRSG Preservation.

HA Users Group 2025 Annual Conference
Date: August 4-8, 2025
Location: Greenville, South Carolina, USA (In-person)
Organizer: HA Users Group
Website: powerusers.org
Key Topics: 7HA, 9HA.

Combined Cycle/Steam Turbine/Generator/Power Plant Controls User Groups and Low Carbon Peer Group Conference
Date: August 25-28, 2025
Location: Washington, D.C., USA (In-person)
Organizer: Steering Committees of each User Group
Website: powerusers.org