The POWER Podcast

A perfect storm is brewing across the U.S. power generation fleet. Between 600 and 700 GE 7FA gas turbines installed during the bubble of 2000–2004—plus roughly 900 7EA units worldwide—are simultaneously approaching the OEM's 144,000-hour, 5,000-start end-of-life threshold. Superalloy forgings carry multi-year lead times. Only a handful of shops worldwide can service these machines. And the data center boom is pushing utilization higher than anyone planned for.

In this episode, we sit down with three MD&A leaders driving the company's push to become an independent alternative for 7FA and 7EA rotor life extensions:

• Dave Fernandes — Gas Turbine Program Manager
• Kevin Roy — Principal Engineer, Parts
• Jason Wheeler — Gas Turbine Rotor Repairs General Manager

We trace the story from MD&A's early-2010s strategic pivot out of steam turbines and into gas turbines under then-CEO John Vanderhoef, through the acquisition of two never-fired machines—a 7FA.03 and a 7EA—that became the foundation of the reverse engineering effort. Kevin Roy explains why zero-hour components were essential, and why CMM and blue-light scanning only get you so far: coatings, shot peening, and surface finishes demand hands-on expertise no laser can replicate.

We dig into the global hunt for vendors capable of producing high-temperature alloy forgings and holding tolerances on turbine-section components—a niche capability MD&A continues to expand for supply chain redundancy. Jason Wheeler walks through the quality regime: first-article scrutiny that carries into every production batch, with inspection standards more rigorous than what these vendors typically face elsewhere.

The conversation turns to MD&A's seed rotor exchange program—modeled on its successful 7FH2 generator program—designed to compress customer downtime to removal, swap, and reinstall, with returned rotors entering the refurbishment cycle for the next customer.

We also unpack what Fernandes calls "the three prongs": fleet-wide timing, multi-year forging lead times, and limited shop capacity worldwide. The conclusion is uncomfortable for operators who haven't started planning—parts needed three to five years from now must enter production today.

Finally, we cover the milestone currently in MD&A's St. Louis shop: the first 7FA.03 rotor purchased specifically for the seed rotor program to complete the full production cycle, with newly manufactured wheels stacking perfectly alongside original serviceable components. And we discuss the 2026 delivery of a life-extended 7FA.03 rotor to a leading U.S. power producer—a vote of confidence from a famously risk-averse industry.

Whether you're a utility planner staring down rotor end-of-life on your 7FA fleet, an asset manager weighing OEM dependence against supply chain risk, or an industry watcher tracking how independents are reshaping heavy-duty gas turbine services, this episode lays out where the bottlenecks are, what's been done about them, and why the window to act is narrowing fast.

Duke Energy operates 11 nuclear units across six sites in the Carolinas — a fleet that produces more than half of the region's electricity year in and year out. In 2025, that fleet posted its best capacity factor on record, north of 97%.

In this episode of The POWER Podcast, Steven Capps, Duke Energy's senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, walks through what's behind that performance and what comes next. Capps frames Duke Energy's nuclear strategy as "today, tomorrow, and the future," and the conversation moves through all three.

Topics covered:

• How Duke Energy pushed its fleet capacity factor above 97% in 2025, and the role of risk management alongside maintenance and capital investment.
• The subsequent license renewal program now extending Oconee and Robinson to 80-year operating lives, with Brunswick next in line and the rest of the fleet to follow.
• Capacity uprates underway at McGuire and Catawba that, combined with measurement-uncertainty-recapture work at Oconee and Brunswick, will deliver roughly 300 MW of additional nuclear capacity — what Capps describes as "the equivalent of a small modular reactor."
• The mechanical reality of an uprate: increased thermal megawatt ratings, more highly enriched fuel, and the secondary-side components — feedwater heaters, moisture separator reheaters, large pumps and motors — that have to be replaced to accommodate the change.
• Duke Energy's decision-making framework for new nuclear, tentatively reflected in the integrated resource plan in 2037, and why economics, not technology choice, is the gating factor.
• Career advice for engineers considering nuclear, from someone who has held more than 10 different roles across his own engineering career.

Capps grew up about 10 miles from Oconee Nuclear Station, earned a mechanical engineering degree at Clemson, and joined Duke Energy after graduation. Twenty years at Oconee, a decade at McGuire, and most recently roles in Duke Energy's corporate organization have shaped his view of where the fleet — and the industry — go from here.

Nuclear energy is back — and this time, the momentum may be here to stay. In this episode of The POWER Podcast, Executive Editor Aaron Larson sits down with Dagmar Thien, who manages conventional island equipment for nuclear power plants at Siemens Energy, to explore what's driving the industry's renewed optimism and how the company is positioning itself at the center of the action.

Thien, a physicist with two decades at Siemens Energy, breaks down the forces fueling the nuclear resurgence: surging global electricity demand, the need for reliable baseload power to back up intermittent renewables, and nuclear's strong climate credentials as a low-lifecycle-emission energy source. The explosive growth of data centers, which require uninterrupted power around the clock, has added particular urgency.

The conversation spans the full spectrum of reactor technology — from gigawatt-scale plants that benefit from economies of scale, to small modular reactors (SMRs) promising faster, cheaper deployment through factory standardization, to Generation IV designs like high-temperature gas-cooled and molten salt reactors that could unlock industrial heat applications beyond electricity.

Thien explains how Siemens Energy's broad turbine portfolio allows it to support virtually any reactor type. She highlights the value of whole-system optimization — collaborating with reactor developers to find the best overall plant performance rather than optimizing each side independently.

The episode also covers the critical but often overlooked work of lifetime extension and modernization. With some U.S. plants pursuing 80-year operating licenses, upgrading turbines, generators, and control systems is essential. Thien discusses the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station — a landmark example of a decommissioned plant being brought back online — and the complex process of managing obsolescence in safety-qualified instrumentation and control systems used in roughly 23% of the world's reactors.

Regulatory challenges, international harmonization efforts between the U.S., UK, and Canada, and the growing role of nuclear heat for industrial decarbonization round out a wide-ranging discussion on where the industry is headed next.

Corporate energy buyers have quietly become one of the most consequential forces shaping the U.S. electricity system. By the end of 2025, members of the Corporate Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) had procured more than 130 GW of carbon-free electricity in the U.S.—a footprint comparable to the combined generating capacity of California and Texas—and roughly double that globally.
In this episode of The POWER Podcast, CEBA CEO Rich Powell joins POWER Executive Editor Aaron Larson for a wide-ranging conversation on how hyperscalers, manufacturers, retailers, and other large electricity users are responding to unprecedented demand growth and reshaping corporate procurement in the process.

Topics covered include:

• Why CEBA is "big tent" on clean technology, and how solar, nuclear, wind, geothermal, hydro, gas with carbon capture, and even fusion PPAs all figure into the mix
• How AI-driven data center growth—and the chip fabs supplying them—are layering onto existing trends in electrification and internet expansion
• The four-pronged nuclear revival: reactor restarts, license renewals, uprates, and advanced reactor bets on X-energy, Kairos, TerraPower, Oklo, and light-water SMRs
• The Ratepayer Protection Pledge and how large buyers are addressing concerns that data centers push costs onto residential customers
• Why ERCOT remains CEBA's "North Star" market, and how hybrid deals combining firm capacity with clean energy attributes are changing PPA structures
• The rise of flexibility as a corporate procurement category, including demand-side management, on-site storage, and virtual power plants
• How rising tariffs and supply chain inflation are squeezing solar, wind, and gas project economics
• Powell's top policy ask: fundamental, legislatively codified reform of federal permitting and transmission planning

A candid look at where the corporate clean energy market stands today—and what it will take to keep pace with the AI era.

After decades of flat electricity demand, the U.S. power sector is suddenly racing to keep up—and rural electric cooperatives are on the front lines. In this episode of The POWER Podcast, Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), joins executive editor Aaron Larson to discuss how roughly 900 co-ops serving 42 million people across 48 states are navigating surging data center load, supply chain pressures, and a shifting regulatory landscape.
Matheson explains what makes the co-op model distinctive—not-for-profit, consumer-owned, and locally governed—and why affordability isn't a talking point but an operational imperative for utilities that serve 92% of America's persistent poverty counties. He then digs into the generation debate, drawing a key distinction between always-available sources like coal, gas, and nuclear, and intermittent resources like wind and solar, and makes the case for local flexibility over federal one-size-fits-all mandates.

Other topics covered in the conversation include:

• Why Matheson believes viable power plants shouldn't be retired before replacement capacity is in place.
• The long-term outlook for nuclear, the status of small modular reactors, and a notable Michigan plant restart driven by two co-ops.
• Where energy storage fits today—and what a true long-duration breakthrough would unlock.
• How global supply chain pressures and tariffs are driving up costs on everything from turbines to meters.
• NRECA's 2026 policy priorities, including EPA rule rollbacks, permitting reform, raising the USDA Rural Utilities Service lending cap, and FEMA reform.
• The contractual and operational complexity of onboarding hyperscale data center loads, and why existing consumers shouldn't subsidize them.
• How roughly 200 co-ops are now bringing broadband to underserved rural areas—a modern echo of 1930s rural electrification.

Whether you're tracking the AI-driven load boom, policy developments in Washington, or the unique role cooperatives play in the U.S. electric sector, this conversation offers a clear-eyed view from someone who represents member-owned utilities covering 54% of the nation's land mass.