Gas Turbine Decarbonisation as a Market Enabler for CCS

The rising demand for electricity, driven by electrification and artificial intelligence, is creating new opportunities for carbon capture and storage (CCS), according to a senior Baker Hughes executive. Gas-fired power generation is re-emerging as a key source of stable baseload supply to balance the intermittency of renewables, particularly for high-tech users like data centres. At the same time, major electricity consumers remain committed to lowering emissions, creating a dual need for both reliable power and decarbonisation. This dynamic is opening a new pathway for CCS to decarbonise gas power.

Supply Gap and Scalability in the US Market

This trend is already visible in the US, where a significant supply gap in power generation for data centres is emerging. Estimates suggest a widening shortfall in capacity against projected demand, with analysts expecting US data centres could face a capacity shortfall of up to 80 gigawatts by 2030. In this context, integrating CCS into gas-fired power plants is seen as a scalable pathway to deliver low-carbon electricity, with gas turbines plus CCS considered the top option in terms of scalability.

Technical Advantages and Standardisation

Beyond scale, gas-fired power offers technical advantages for carbon capture deployment. Standardised flue gas characteristics and steady operating profiles make capture systems easier to design, optimise, and replicate compared with more variable industrial processes. This standardisation could help drive down costs across the broader CCS value chain, unlocking deployment in other hard-to-abate sectors such as cement and steel. From this viewpoint, gas turbine decarbonisation is not just another application for CCS but may be an enabler of scale across the entire industry.