Startup company, VoltaGrid, has a unique approach to providing power for data centers and oil and gas companies that face shortages from power grids

It offers bus-sized natural gas or LNG-fuled power generators on wheels

Source: Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2025

The previous administration was hell-bent on destroying natural gas, which they considered one of the main impediments to their plans to impose their “green new deal” and pave the US with solar panels and wind turbines. They knew natural gas was a superior fuel that would win out in a head-to-head matchup, so they declared war on it along with all fossil fuels. They attacked “natty” from all directions, including moratoriums on federal oil and gas leases, methane emissions regulations, new power plant emissions standards, subsidies for renewables and heat pumps, attempts to ban gas stoves, furnaces, and water heaters with impossible efficiency standards, a moratorium on LNG exports, and much more.

Luckily, the November 2025 election results stopped their evil efforts in their tracks, but the destructive effects of their policies linger. A challenging problem is the damage the war on fossil fuels did to U.S. power grids. The US now faces a shortage of dispatchable power, from natural gas, coal, and nuclear generators, just as new power demand from AI and data centers is starting to soar. A related issue is the shortage of natural gas-fired turbines needed to build the additional power-generating infrastructure required to provide enough 24/7 electricity for this emerging sector.

Natural gas-fired turbine manufacturers report unprecedented order growth, which has overwhelmed production capacity. A Forbes article on March 16, 2025, highlighted that GE Vernova, the world’s largest turbine maker, said its orders quintupled between 2023 and 2024. CEO Scott Strazik said they have plans to produce 70–80 large-scale turbines in 2026, nearly double the current output, yet demand still outpaces supply. Heatmap News reported on February 26, 2025, that GE Vernova and competitors are prioritizing “capital discipline” to avoid overinvesting, leading to persistent backlogs as they limit production expansion despite rising demand. All this indicates the potential for years of delay for new natural gas-fired power plants.

A Houston-based startup company, VoltaGrid, is offering an innovative solution. The Wall Street Journal reported that the $4 billion startup company has a unique approach to providing power to data centers, oil and gas drilling, and well service companies that face power shortages from electric grids. The founder and CEO of VoltaGrid, Canadian Nathan Ough, started by working with Halliburton to power its hydraulic fracturing pumps with bus-size natural-gas/LNG-powered generators mounted on trailers, with a modular design that allows customized rapid deployment. The generators are manufactured in Europe and the US and are assembled in Texas. The company has worked with many other oil and gas companies, including Permian Basin giant Diamondback Energy.

VoltaGrid says that its power solutions can be short-term or long-term. Their power solutions are attractive for AI and data center companies that need to get their facilities up and running but do not want long-term obligations with fossil fuel generators and power grids. They can get their facilities up and running with VoltaGrid while they work on longer-term solutions such as small modular reactors or other lower-emission approaches.

The WSJ article described VoltaGrid’s CEO, Nathan Ough, as:

(A) self-described nerd who, as a child, collected extension cords from all over the world. A little-known name inside the energy industry just a few years ago, he now plays matchmaker between Big Tech and Big Oil. He cultivates relationships with Trump allies and makes frequent appearances on conservative media channels—some which have compared him with Elon Musk.

When he visits with lawmakers in Washington, he hands out lapel pins that read, “DATA CENTERS LOVE LOW CARBON FOSSIL FUELS.”

Ough says he isn’t a raging conservative, and that his company prospered under former President Joe Biden. Still, he says, he appreciates the Trump administration’s support for fossil fuels. He recently donated nearly $111,000 to the Republican National Committee and plans to travel to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in the coming weeks.

All he wants from the Trump administration is for it to let his company build an electricity empire in the U.S., he says.

“I just want to build s— in America.”

My Take

While the previous administration's plans to destroy the US oil and natural gas industry and force the use of wind and solar have been halted by the Trump administration, the fallout will continue for years. Even though natural gas is no longer under attack in Washington, DC, numerous power-related market dislocation problems are occurring. The natural gas pipeline infrastructure is inadequate in many parts of the US, especially the Northeast. LNG exports divert more US natural gas production to LNG plants in Texas and Louisiana. Power grids are being constrained by shortages of electrical hardware, especially transformers, and the scarcity of natural gas turbines is constraining new power-generating capacity.

The upside of all these challenges is that “necessity is the mother of invention,” and problem-solving innovation is coming to the rescue. Companies like VoltaGrid are developing new approaches to providing electricity, especially for oil field services and data centers.

President Trump declared a national energy emergency to address what he described as an “inadequate and intermittent energy supply” and an “unreliable grid” caused by the Biden administration’s policies. We are already seeing the fruits of unleashing good old American ingenuity, and there is more to come.

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