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2026.09.22 | TB | Power | Vistra Supply Chain Bottlenecks

原标题：Vistra – Supply Chain Pressures & Procurement Bottlenecks on Capacity Growth

#power

Third Bridge · 2026-09-22

Analyst-led • 17 Sep 2026

Companies: VST US, SIE DE, EMR US, GE US

Joshua Winget (JW) Supply Chain Manager, Power Generation Plant at NRG Energy Inc

Anthony DeRuijter (AD) — Third Bridge Sector Analyst

Agenda

Key Insights

Introduction

AD [00:00:02]: Let's start Third Bridge's Interview entitled Vistra – Supply Chain Pressures & Procurement Bottlenecks on Capacity Growth. My name is Anthony DeRuijter. I'm very pleased to be joined today by Mr Joshua Winget, Supply Chain Manager, Power Generation Plant at NRG Energy.

Joshua, thanks much for joining me today. Before we begin today's Interview, could you please state I agree or I disagree to the following statement: You understand the definition of material non-public information and agree not to disclose any such information, or any other information which is confidential, during this Interview.

JW [00:00:33]: I agree.

AD [00:00:34]: Could you briefly introduce yourself?

JW [00:00:40]: I'm Joshua Winget. I'm the Supply Chain Manager, a major power generation facility in Houston, Texas. I've been in supply chain for 13 years in and out of oil and gas and now power generation.

Questions

[00:01:01] Vistra's fleet has got gas-fired across different configurations. It has coal, nuclear, etc, but it seems that there's a lot of pressure from demanding loads – such as data centres – that might put pressure on needed uptime. Also, there's a lot of expectation of new gas-fired plants in regions such as ERCOT [Electric Reliability Council of Texas] and PJM Interconnection [Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland] – a lot of competition for the same resources. What's the overall supply chain stress that could come out of this for an IPP [independent power producer] such as Vistra?

JW [00:01:49]: From what I've been seeing, the supply chain stress on major critical pieces of equipment has probably, say, multiplied by five. It's not a simple, straightforward question that data centres are coming online and they have to power those and that's megawatts that are coming off of the grid, but in locations like Texas under ERCOT, a lot of the regulations are revolving around when they're building these data centres, they have to build their own power generation sources, which is then exacerbating the issue because those additional data centre power generation peaker units are now getting in line for turbine blades, transformers, motors, compressors, everything. Everything is getting dragged out.

AD [00:03:03]: What would you consider to be the most stressed inputs for an IPP such as Vistra, who has a pretty diverse energy mix from coast to coast, or has a large geographical footprint?

JW [00:03:26]: You mean supply chain inputs?

AD [00:03:30]: Non-fuel.

JW [00:03:37]: Going to be all of your maintenance, all of your ageing equipment that's either not repairable or having to be custom-fitted. Repair times are also being dragged out. The big thing is you have to think 10 years from now. Companies are looking because data centres are the big talk right now, but companies are looking at building much larger-scale data centres, and they're projecting that 10 years out. Buying turbine blades for a power generation peaker unit to fuel a data centre that won't even come online until 2035. The analytics behind having to project that type of revenue or capital to fund that large of a project and based off of the increasing rising cost of raw material and generally every piece of equipment, that is extremely stressful on higher executives, for sure.

AD [00:05:21]: Do you have any examples from your own experience to provide an anecdote or to contextualise the degree of stress?

JW [00:05:41]: Transformers, a big, very large GSU step-up transformer, two years ago would take approximately from Siemens about 18 months. Current lead time is four years, and that's coming out of South America. One of the big things that's driving that are the transformer's steel cores coming out of Spain. Most of them come out of western Europe. The lead time and the process, there's just a huge… Imagine going to Disney World and you're going to get on Space Mountain and you've got your little free pass to jump the line, but even that line has got 50 people in it.

[00:06:50] Are you seeing any pressure on labour availability? How much of a material impact could it have on existing operations and the new ones to come?

JW [00:07:16]: The labour restraints, quality labour is becoming hard to find. Houston is a giant melting pot of a lot of different… They have oil and gas. We have refineries. We have power generation facilities, and the demand for good skilled labour is becoming much, much more harder to find. We're seeing companies that have been in business, have been the gold standard for safety protocols being blackboxed or blacklisted by major corporations because of mistakes made by LOTOs, by heavy lifts, stuff that you would have never seen five years ago because safety was paramount. Now everything is being rushed. Crews are stretched bone-thin. They're trying to do more with less, and they have to still get the same job done, but with fewer people and lesser resources, which leads to mistakes and leads to injuries and OSHA gets involved and it's a big mess.

[00:08:57] Do you think any key consumables related to power generation could undergo significant stress in the environment?

JW [00:09:13]: One thing that I'm actually foreseeing that really hasn't come around. We're seeing an emergence in computer chip shortages with large computer companies, but ageing power generation facilities are continuously putting in Bently Nevada high-vibration transmitters, these 80-year-old power generation facilities, because what's happening is everybody thought coal was going to be done within the next five years, but now places like up north in, near Chicago, the East Coast, those coal units are now being extended life by 10-15 years. They're not going to be coming offline. A unit that they thought would have been shut down in the next six months is actually going to now be online for another 15 years just because they can't replace that power generation, which that means that they have to put just for those will be more effective and more efficient, you have to put in new technology on an old piece of equipment to make sure that you get the longer life, you get the more efficient, you have less turnarounds, fewer outage forced outages, maintenance outages. The computer chips are becoming… It hasn't really hit power generation quite yet, but I'm starting to hear from companies like Bently Nevada, Emerson, some of the large automation companies, Oracle, their lead times is a domino effect. It's just slowly making its way down the train, and it's going to hit everything.

[00:11:28] Per my understanding, Vistra is delaying the retirement of its Baldwin plant through to 2027. It was meant to retire in 2025. When there's a large coal-fired generator that remains running for a couple of years, is there any step-up in the maintenance or supply chain pressure to keep it running past its set retirement date?

JW [00:12:10]: That's an astronomical amount of difference because when a coal unit is wrapping up, you're talking about the Baldwin plant, they thought it was going to be retiring or would have been retired, but they haven't just now started ramping up that cost, as soon as they know that plant, those units are going to stay online for another three, four, five years because no one likes to say this. Everybody hates coal. We all know it creates a lot of CO2 and emissions and EPA issues, but the coal units around Houston and up north in the East Coast, they're extremely efficient. If you look at the metrics, when you're looking at four coal units on a facility and four gas units on a facility, the coal is just so much more efficient. There is a larger maintenance cost because coal is corrosive and it is messy and a lot of clean-up, but you still make a ton more money. You can't make gas turbines, gas peaker units fast enough to replace one coal unit. 500-600MW, a peaker unit of that size would take five years to make.

[00:13:58] Vistra has a number of repowers or coal-to-gas conversions. Do you have any views on its feasibility or the supply chain side of it and what it means for run-of-life economics post-conversion?

JW [00:14:19]: Converting from coal-to-gas is, what I have been seeing in the market is that it is not cost-effective. The amount of money it takes to convert a coal unit to natural gas-fired burners and turbines, you might as well just build a whole brand-new unit, a brand-spanking clean, highly efficient unit. If you're talking about converting a coal unit that was built in the 1950s, yes, large corporations are just shutting, like up in Delaware, Indian River, and Vienna. They could have changed those plants to gas-powered or converted them, but now there's nothing there anymore. It just wasn't cost-effective.

[00:15:31] Do you have any views on the stability of fuel costs for ERCOT and PJM Interconnection generation fleets? I think there's an expectation that especially for the gas-fired plants in these areas, the feed gas cost should be fairly manageable, but do you have a different view?

JW [00:16:04]: The gas fuel, I actually think, is going to be more stable. You're saying Vistra has got a portfolio for coal, when you're thinking about coal and gas, gas is in a pipeline, you have motors and pumps pushing and applying pressure. Instead of coal coming on 55 railcars every day from Wyoming or Virginia, the cost for transporting coal vs natural gas, gas does have a much higher efficiency. I think the gas is going to be much more stable as far as metric unit cost vs coal, but you also have that offset with coal units being more efficient and getting more megawatts than a gas unit would.

AD [00:17:26]: Given what you just mentioned, ultimately, when thinking about the stability of the feed for a coal-fired plant, given that Vistra still has those, would you say it will be more volatile than what is seen with gas?

JW [00:17:47]: You mean as far as the availability?

AD [00:17:59]: Yes, or rather, the actual fuel cost is going to be more volatile. You'll have more.

JW [00:18:05]: The price of coal is going to go up. That's what I was trying to say. With natural gas pipelines coming out of South Dakota, or your coal coming out of Wyoming and you have gas coming down the pipeline or down the street in the port of Houston, the cost of the material doesn't go up. It's the cost of the transportation. It's getting the coal to the facility. We have coal units, several different coal units in the Texas area, getting coal from Wyoming and the East Coast in Virginia and the price to get that coal from that far away on a train, also, it takes longer. It takes longer. It's going to cost more. Those trains are putting more engines on a 55-car train just to get it here faster. That's going to increase your fuel charge just to get it to the site. If you look at tonnage of coal being brought to a plant from 300-400 miles away vs a gas pipeline, gas is going to win that every time.

[00:19:47] How much of a coal-fired plant's OPEX stack comes from the logistics side?

JW [00:20:15]: I'd have to say a 25% extra cost in transportation. Like I said, they're adding trains, your locomotives run on diesel. Your diesel costs go up, but also maintaining a pipeline is a lot cheaper than changing out railroad ties and making sure your track's good for that entire distance. The train, you have dumpers, you have auxiliary dumpers actually flipping railcars 180 degrees just to empty it out. If they had to use backhoes or something like that, I know some plants do, but that cost, it just depends on what type of system you have. If you are a large coal-fired power plant that has its own rail that comes into the plant and also has its own two-stage phase dumpers that can dump… I could literally just turn a railcar upside down and dump it and then just move down and hit 55 cars in six hours. That's a huge benefit and cost reduction than having to just literally scoop it out of the railcars, but the cost, it goes up dramatically. You turn a nozzle, you turn a ball valve or a globe valve and you get gas just constantly. Coal is dirty, it's corrosive. It eats away at the railcars. If you have a railcar that just dumps its load on a track in Oklahoma on its way here, that's going to stop the other railcars behind it.

[00:22:42] Do you see any reasons why IPPs such as Vistra might see some of its thermal asset running costs blow out due to the various supply chain and procurement issues or pressures and risks that we discussed? What quantum of impact do you imagine seeing?

JW [00:23:18]: I would be very interested to see five years from now, the cost for getting these procurement and logistics restraints, they are astronomically higher than what we were used to 5-10 years ago, but the price of the megawatt is also much higher, and that price is only going to skyrocket. It's like a balancing match, your costs are going up, but you're also making so much more money per megawatt and keeping those units on. We've been seeing a lot of different influxes in VPP. That's a very interesting market, which is also the batteries are offsetting. That's also keeping, right now, currently in ERCOT, we've been at one of the hottest summers ever. Normally, you would see right now here in September or last month in August and July, the price of megawatt would have usually been about 10-15% higher, but now we have battery systems and battery farms that are offsetting those loads, but then you also have to imagine those battery farms only, they'll give the power to ERCOT, but when they're depleted, they're not going to start charging until the megawatt is at its cheapest. It's an extremely volatile, huge change.

We have all types of different new aspects in power generation. Honestly, you're taking a shot in the dark and trying to figure out who's going to come on top. I know diversification is your best bet. Large power generation corporations that still put money into their old ageing units to keep them running longer and extending the life and getting the megawatts out of those units and then also diversifying in wind, solar, nuclear. I know that there's been a lot of talk in ERCOT about small nuclear units, not like a big Mile Island unit, but in neighbourhoods, having a small modular nuclear power generation facility, but then there's also… It's clean, but it's also extremely dangerous. Again, more costs, more regulations. The demand for the megawatt is just going to go up. It's not going to stop going up. With the data centres coming out now, we just can't get power fast enough. The federal power agency put out that they were worried that there wasn't going to be enough power generation in 2025, and that has just gotten worse in the last 12 months.

[00:27:31] There seems to be a lot of pressure for data centres, that if they're going to come online, that load may need to come with its own power. Either they bring their own power or they reach agreements with IPPs to put in new builds to support themselves. Let's say that the route forward for data centres is to facilitate a bunch of new builds, which competes with the supply chain stresses that we talked about earlier for existing plants. How much more worse could that supply chain stress get with all this in mind?

JW [00:28:31]: It's going to 100%. It's going to get much, much worse. It's not going to get better before it gets worse. These data centres that are going to be building their own GE... the LS500s* or the peakers, just enough 100MW to power a data centre, but those are turbine blades. Those are transformers, those are valves, those are pipe. You're not going to just see longer lead times in one section. You're seeing longer lead times in everything that you're buying, from small two-inch ball valves, everything is getting pushed out. Lead times are doubling. Costs are going up. That's why some corporations are… Because you were saying that these data centres, they have to produce their own power, but what some companies are doing is, "Okay, we have to provide our own power, but if we put this data centre on this piece of property, really close to this power generation facility and we get a deal for them to produce our power," they're providing their own power, but they're taking megawatts that were already going to the grid because they can pay more than what the consumer pays.

[*Expert misspoke. GE does not produce a LS 500 series of equipment]

[00:30:32] If we were to see a proliferation in new gas-fired asset development, where might you expect meaningful bottlenecks in the supply chain, especially where you see an overlap with other thermal assets, or other assets that share similar components or supply chain needs?

JW [00:30:57]: It's going to be your big ones, turbine blades. You're going to see bottlenecks of turbine blades. You're going to see longer… You're just going to start seeing, you're going to have to start planning 5-10 years out, we're going to build 10 brand-new units in the next five years, but if you can't get turbine blades, or if you can't get boilers, or if you can't get a transformer, or a generator, the big pieces of equipment, valves and stuff, you're going to see longer lead times and stuff like that.

You're also going to see companies that were strictly buying from Italy or the US, start buying from China, Taiwan, South Korea. Companies that were here in the US, that were strict and hard only US-made, they're not going to have a choice. They're going to have to buy smaller stuff like that. Those markets will expand and they'll be able to fill the gap, but turbine blades are such… They have to be so precise. The high-pressure turbine blades, if there's a small millimetre wrong or difference in a bend, or if your vibration detection isn't or overspeed detection doesn't pick it up and you blow up a unit, you can't rush certain types of equipment. It's not like casting a ball valve and the material then that turbine blades are made out of is, it's going to go up in price, just like we were talking about before, raw material. Everything is going to go up in price. Everything is going to take longer to get.

[00:33:20] Let's talk about your comment on there potentially being a trend for American IPPs to start sourcing key equipment needs from Chinese vendors as well. Outside the big three – GE Vernova, Siemens and Mitsubishi – if they start going to Chinese suppliers, how is that going to impact the tariffs of it all? How might IPPs be able to source that product without CAPEX going out of whack due to tariff impacts?

JW [00:34:04]: Tariffs have been a problem for 1.5 years. It's not just Chinese… Yes, the tariffs that the US federal government have put on China have been severe and very strict, but that's not the only tariffs that we're seeing problems with ABB out of Switzerland and Germany. Not a lot of people knew this, but as soon as Donald Trump put tariffs on China at 20-25%, he also put tariffs on everything coming out of Germany and Switzerland at 10%, and that's gone up to 15% since it started. Tariffs are such a complicated subject and companies are trying to get an exact measurement, but when you're buying something from Emerson, let's say we're buying a pressure relief valve from Emerson's Fisher line, and it's automated and actuated. This little tiny piece comes from China. This little tiny piece comes from Germany. It's not a tariff on the overall end. It's not like your Fisher valve is marked up 10%. It's little pieces here, little chunks here, and it's driving up costs. That's why vendors like Nei and Shermco are coming… Shermco is a distributor, but Emerson is willing to start selling to end users and cutting out distribution just because of tariffs. You're seeing a 10-20% mark-up in everything just for tariffs if you're getting it from China or Taiwan or Germany or Switzerland, like ABB, they have to start selling direct and cutting out and creating new jobs within their company for outside sales because distribution just adds another 15-20% on that. We're seeing large manufacturers that would never have ever sold to end users, start making that trend towards selling to the end user. That's not just power generation, that's oil and gas, that's large semiconductors. That's everything.

[00:37:11] Generally speaking, with turbines, constraints have been very much talked about with regards to the boom in power generation or the need for it. What have you seen with current lead times for major turbines, such as the GE 7HAs, or any of the Siemens large frames, or even the Mitsubishi ones? Has there been any lead time reduction or elongation?

JW [00:37:45]: It's definitely elongation. It's like what I was saying about going to Disney World and getting on the line for Space Mountain. That line is just getting longer and longer. Companies have to start thinking 10, 20, 30 years away. If you have to wait five years for a turbine, not even a whole turbine, let's just say you're waiting in line for eight or 10 high-pressure blades or 15 or 20 low-pressure blades, just blades, replacements. I can't even imagine what it would cost for GE or how long it would take GE to get an entire turbine produced in the next, if you needed a turbine in the next two years, you're just not going to get it unless you buy another company and take their turbine.

AD [00:39:04]: I thought the lead times for the large frames, the gas turbines were in the 5-7-year mark. Are we still there? Is it longer than that at this point?

JW [00:39:21]: Yes, it's five or seven years, but you have to… What I'm saying is you have to think in 10, 20, 30 years down the road, you have to start getting your… Everybody is building new units. You have to start getting yourself… For an example, my wife is in childcare. She's the director of a school, and she has a two-year waiting period for her toddler room. Now toddlers are only two years old, and you're having to get in line and reserve a space in a room for toddler before you even get pregnant. Before you even think about building a new unit, you're already… If you're talking about making a new unit in five years, you need to start getting in line for turbine blades, whole turbines, if you're building a whole new unit or new transformers, motors, everything.

AD [00:40:47]: What are we seeing of lead times and costs for the key transformer models that are in vogue for IPPs?

JW [00:41:01]: I have personal recent knowledge with companies like Siemens and Hitachi. A new GSU step-up transformer that would take 18-24 months a couple of years ago is four… They're saying four years, but I'm thinking it's going to be more like five. The lead times are going up a lot higher than what the costs are going up. Cost increases on a big transformer like that from Siemens is going up about 15%, maybe 18%, but you're also seeing a lot of transformers that were sitting in a yard as spares, Hitachi taking those up to their facilities up in Canada and retrofitting them or beefing them up and getting them into bigger units. Companies are having to think outside the box with existing assets that they have that can be used at other facilities. You're trying to stretch your lifespan of a coal unit or an ageing gas unit. You're also trying to extend the life of your GSU transformers, your motors, sending 5-6 motors for repair every week. I'm like 700 horsepower, high RPM, you have to not just think about the longevity of a power generation facility. All of your assets, you got to start thinking outside the box and extending… If you have transformers at this facility up in Delaware or Chicago, and because of regulation and PJM, you can bring those to ERCOT and extend the life of a piece of equipment, not just a power generation facility, that could be a really big game changer.

AD [00:44:14]: What have you seen with regards to the costs, slot fees and deposits to secure a place in line for the large frames that everyone's been talking about? Have those been spiking at all?

JW [00:44:37]: Yes, you're seeing huge… Like you were saying, slot fees are a lot more upfront costs. You're seeing a lot of changes in… The price is going up, but you're also seeing changes in milestone payments. When you're going into contract negotiations and when you used to put down 5% on a place of order, now you're putting 20-30% down, expediting fees, even if they can't expedite, you're always pushing that, you're trying to jump in line.

AD [00:45:25]: Do you have any anecdotes or examples of what slot fees look like today?

JW [00:45:35]: For large frame, I'm trying to think. Nothing really comes to mind. Imagine, you're playing Texas hold'em poker and you don't even get your cards yet and you go all in. Sometimes, that's the case. It just depends on how fast and how soon you need that piece of equipment or turbine because GE is going to offer you, "Hey, if you give us an extra… If you want to multiply that by half and add that to the top of the first payment, then we'll see what we can do."

[00:46:46] Do you see any potential squeeze in steam turbines? Do you see any procuring issues, especially given CCGTs [combined cycle gas turbines] need steam turbines?

JW [00:47:06]: I'm not seeing, as in my environment, we're not buying… Like I was saying earlier about blades, we were talking about procuring an entire turbine, but ageing steam units, you buy 5-10 high-turbine or high-pressure blades and you'll buy 20-30 low-pressure blades. You're seeing a squeeze… You're not replacing the entire turbine. It's a little bit of a different dynamic than if you're building a brand-new unit, gas simple cycle unit, you're going to have to buy a whole turbine, which that takes a lot longer. You're seeing with the turbine blades, you're seeing 5%, 10%, 15% in raw material costs.

Also, a lot of that comes from Europe. There's tariffs on top of that. Yes, and I know I've been just saying this the entire time, but costs are going up. Costs are going up, lead times are going up, and I cannot, for the life of me, think of how any change in the market could reverse the direction in which costs are going up, lead times are being longer. I can't imagine a magic switch that someone just… Unless someone makes a breakthrough in hydrogen technology.

AD [00:49:09]: Do you have any views on Vistra's relationships with key vendors and suppliers in this environment, and whether that gives the company access to preferential slots for key capital equipment categories?

JW [00:49:25]: Vistra, Calpine, all the big guys, they throw their weight around. When I say they throw their weight, they throw their pocketbook. They're going to be able to leverage more capital if it is needed to get a unit up and running in five years instead of 10.

[00:50:03] A lot of the big IPPs have become bigger in the last couple of years with various plant and/or portfolio acquisitions. As they get larger, what do you think it means for buying power with the vendors? Does it increase or is it commensurate?

JW [00:50:26]: You got to think you are one of the larger big boys in the power generation market. You double your generation in one acquisition. If you're buying… I also feel like companies that are doing these acquisitions are not taking the time to assess the quality. They're buying units and they're having to pump… They'll buy that unit or they'll acquire all of a whole bunch of LM6000s, and they were all privately owned. They were run into the dirt. All the suppliers that feed that large corporation, and they know they just doubled in generation, they know what kind of units they bought and they know they're going to need all this GE equipment. Yes, they know the money is coming. They'll leverage those accounts. GE, if you buy 36 GE LM6000s and they're 20 years old and you just buy all of them and they were privately owned, GE knows that you're coming to them for the next 10-15 years.

[00:52:22] What's your view on the economics and feasibility of brownfield vs greenfield projects, given some of the supply chain, procurement and other risks that we discussed? If we see that IPPs such as Vistra have to commit to more new builds due to data centres, how do you think about the economics, and whether the per-unit or per-megawatt cost will be so much higher based on what the company is seeing out there with regards to replacement CAPEX and new-build CAPEX being double or more of existing?

JW [00:53:17]: That goes back to what we were talking about before. It really depends on… If you're in ERCOT, you are going to get a much longer lifespan out of old ageing units than you would out of PJM just because of regulation. The restrictions in the different markets, they're pretty severe. They're pretty different. PJM, ERCOT, Florida, they're all… Nothing is really the same and ERCOT is probably the most relaxed, but you're still going to see new builds like coal units that were supposed to have already been retired and now the data centres are a whole new subject. You just can't build megawatts fast enough. I say megawatts, I'm like whole units, you need to build a unit that's going to produce 500-600MW. That's not something that just happens overnight. There's going to be new builds. There's going to be retrofits. You're going to see some other companies taking bigger risks, like you were talking about changing or swiftly changing a coal unit to a gas unit. Maybe there's aspects or there's units out there that could make that switch and it might be more feasible, but I've seen a couple on the East Coast. Those coal units, now it's just an empty field. Interesting enough, those fields that I was just talking about that were coal units, interesting enough, there's not a gas unit there now.

AD [00:55:44]: That brings me to the end of my questions for today. I'll leave it at that. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing your insight.

JW [00:55:58]: Thanks.

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