Finnish technology group Wärtsilä has secured an order to provide a 790MW off-grid power solution for a new data centre being built in Texas, US.
This order is the company’s fifth data centre-related contract in the US and its first in Texas.
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The facility will utilise 42 Wärtsilä 50SG engines operating on natural gas. Equipment pertaining to the order is scheduled for delivery in 2028, with full operations at the power plant expected to commence in late 2029.
Wärtsilä recorded the order in the second quarter of 2026.
The company said that Texas is a major hub for AI model training and large-scale infrastructure buildouts, but the grid cannot currently meet the region’s urgent power needs.
By adopting a dedicated power plant independent of the main grid, the data centre aims to ensure uninterrupted energy supply for its operations.
According to Wärtsilä, its engines are designed to operate at full capacity under the state’s high temperature conditions, maintaining performance regardless of heat.
The engines’ heat rate averages 6,800 British thermal units per kilowatt-hour, which the company states will help the plant manage fuel costs and emissions levels, streamlining the process for environmental and regulatory approvals.
The installation is also intended to enable future integration with renewable energy sources, allowing the data centre, once grid-connected, to support balancing functions for renewable power in the area.
Wärtsilä executive vice-president and Wärtsilä Energy president Anders Lindberg said: “Wärtsilä’s primary power solutions offer significant benefits to data centre 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 centre market.”
The project adds to more than 2.4GW of power capacity Wärtsilä has delivered to data centres across the US.
Last week, Wärtsilä secured a contract to deliver 412MW of engine power for a new hyperscale data centre project in Ohio. The project involves the deployment of 40 Wärtsilä 34SG spark gas engines.
