Fluence shares up 129% after $2.4bn gas-turbine deal for AI data centers

Fluence shares up 129% after $2.4bn gas-turbine deal for AI data centers A battery-storage firm's record gas-fired contract with Base Electron underscores how AI load growth is pulling fossil baseload back into the power mix. Fluence Energy disclosed a $2.4 billion design-build contract with Base Electron for 1.2 GW of natural gas-fired power generation, sending its shares to $14.54, up 129.34% year to date, by the May 21 (2026-05-21) close.² The deal lifted backlog 470% to $2.8 billion, one of the largest single commitments yet from the AI data center sector to fossil-fueled baseload.² The contract reads as a direct bet that gas turbines will fill demand batteries and renewables cannot yet meet. Data centers used about 4.6% of total U.S. electricity in 2024, a share that government estimates say could nearly triple by 2028.³ Over the same stretch Google's emissions jumped nearly 50%, Amazon's rose 33%, Microsoft's more than 23% and Meta's more than 60%.³ Base Electron is already evaluating another 1.2 GW option, and Fluence's global pipeline exceeds $12 billion.² Management guided 2026 core adjusted EBITDA to $70 million to $85 million, roughly 80% year-on-year growth, before any data center upside.² The pivot is not unique to Fluence. Babcock & Wilcox, which makes industrial power generation equipment, is moving into AI data center baseload, and its shares have rallied this year.² BloombergNEF projects solar will become the largest source of power by 2035, surpassing coal, oil and natural gas, while still expecting AI data centers to keep fossil fuels in use.⁴ Battery storage firms are seeing surging interest from AI data centers, Reuters reported on May 18 (2026-05-18), but long grid-connection queues and a supply chain heavily dependent on China are hampering their ability to scale quickly.⁵ Those bottlenecks give gas-fired power the opening the Base Electron contract now makes explicit.⁵ The balance sheet carries risk. Fluence reported stockholders' equity of -$131.5 million and faces a 6.50% note refinancing due in 2026.² Management reaffirmed a 2026 revenue target of roughly $3.2 billion to $3.6 billion, citing 85% of the midpoint already contracted.¹ Analysts project a strong third quarter as deferred revenue from Q2 shipments is realized, though a mid-May 2026 secondary offering of 20 million Class A shares, priced around $21.00, triggered immediate price volatility and concerns about institutional exits.¹ Big tech's clean-energy pledges are fraying as load grows. Google, which six years ago expected to power all operations with clean electricity by 2030, now calls that goal a "moonshot," while Microsoft still aims to remove more carbon than it emits but cites the need for flexibility as it builds data centers that can draw more power than entire cities.³ The unresolved question is how much new gas capacity for AI gets built on merchant economics versus long-term contracts where the engineering and construction firm carries the balance-sheet risk. Fluence's $2.4 billion Base Electron deal and the 470% backlog jump point toward the contracted path, yet the -$131.5 million equity hole leaves that bet far from settled.²