Siemens Energy’s Bianco to Speak at Appalachian AI Energy Conference

PENN VALLEY, PA, UNITED STATES, February 25, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The need for massive amounts of constant power – volumes akin to the electricity requirements of Miami or Philadelphia – for a single artificial intelligence (AI) data center is resulting in a scramble by developers and power providers. Power, not computer chips may be the defining element in getting AI data centers built.

Siemens Energy, one of the world’s leading energy technology companies, works with its customers and partners on energy systems for the future The company covers almost the entire energy value chain – from power and heat generation and transmission to storage. The portfolio includes conventional and renewable energy technology, such as gas and steam turbines, hybrid power plants operated with hydrogen, and power generators and transformers. “AI and cloud computing really are driving the massive need for power,” according to Thiago Bianco, Data Center account manager and business development Lead, for Siemens Energy FL.

Bianco is one of the expert speakers presenting at Appalachian AI Energy Conference I, a one-day program coming to the Hilton Garden Inn Pittsburgh/Southpointe on May 21. The conference was developed by the H2-CCS Network and Shale Directories.

Power for data centers must be readily available and reliable, putting an emphasis on the efficiency of the power-producing equipment and the speed with which a center can be up and running. All of these factors point to natural gas and Siemens Energy has seen demand rise in the US for all of its natural gas turbine models.

Time to market, efficiency, availability and reliability are the main drivers for many data center customers Bianco said.

Data centers are full of routers, storage devices and servers for one company, or numerous companies, which have transferred their information technology operations to a centralized location and into the hands of experts. A center can be more than one million square feet and can use more than 10 times the power needed by a steel mill.

In 2023, data centers utilized 4% of all power produced in the US. This percentage will more than double by 2030, to 9% -- more power than the total power used by the United Kingdom, according to one estimate.

Bianco, like many power experts, highlights that, for instance, high efficient combined cycle power plants running on Siemens Energy equipment have relative smaller carbon emissions (lbCO2/MWH) than half of the US grid. Natural gas is seen by many as the fuel to power data centers right now while less carbon intensive sources of energy are scaling up.

Hydrogen (H2) is seen as an emerging alternative to fossil fuels, but until the H2 infrastructure is built and cost of H2 generated by renewable energy, known as green hydrogen, reaches economies of scale, it will be unfeasible and uneconomical to use H2 for base load generation.

“The cost of, green hydrogen, must drop by about 10 times to be competitive with fuels that are more widely used on the market today,” Bianco said. ” The early adopters of green hydrogen are likely to be other industries like fertilizer, hydrocracking, hydrogenation.

With the US transmission and distribution projects going through long approval and permitting processes to expand, there are opportunities for independent power producers and data centers to generate on-site power at a competitive cost. Bianco said companies are more than willing to look at “behind-the-meter” solutions for energy - generation, storage, and management systems located on the consumer's side of the utility meter.
“Companies are looking to sign power purchase agreements with independent power producers,” according to Bianco.

“Speed in securing available/reliable/secure power is the name of game today.”.

Joe Barone
Shale Directories
+1 610-764-1232
jbarone@shaledirectories.com