Power demand doesn’t wait. For decades, even the largest power consumers could count on the availability of electricity. That era is over. Demand has outpaced the grid’s ability to keep up, and securing reliable generation has become one of the defining challenges of the moment. Barton Malow is playing a significant role in that shift.
This work has always been complex—the stakes always high—but the foundation that makes it buildable isn’t new to us. What’s happening in this market right now is different in scale and speed, and we’re building on everything we know to meet it. Thermal energy, or electricity produced from natural gas, has become one of the most active construction segments in the country. Understanding why and what it actually takes to deliver in this space is worth unpacking.
A Gap That Can’t Be Closed Alone
The energy landscape is more complex than any single technology can solve. Solar, wind, and battery storage are transforming how power is generated and managed, and Barton Malow is active across all of it. Thermal energy generation adds another critical layer: dispatchable power that can be called on at scale, at any hour, to meet demand that doesn’t wait.
The rise of data centers and the AI boom has added urgency to an already strained grid. These facilities require massive, continuous power, and the load can shift in milliseconds. The combination of surging demand and the need for dispatchable, reliable generation means thermal energy facilities are foundational infrastructure.
In high-demand markets, utilities are quoting grid interconnection timelines measured in years. Large power consumers who can’t wait are building their own generation on site, which are behind-the-meter facilities that operate independently of the grid and are engineered to never go dark.
The conventional utility plant and behind-the-meter facility share much of their DNA, but they answer to different standards. A grid-connected plant leans on the wider network to absorb load swings and hold frequency steady. An islanded facility has no such cushion and has to act as its own grid, generating and balancing stability in real time with nothing to catch a mismatch. Clients don’t need a power plant that usually runs; they need one that effectively never stops, where a single component failure changes nothing about output. Reliability requirements at these facilities leave no margin for error.
How They Work
At the core of most thermal energy projects are natural gas-fired reciprocating engines or gas turbines, large-scale machines that burn natural gas to generate electricity. Gas turbines, particularly in combined-cycle configurations, excel at efficient, sustained output. Heat produced during combustion is captured by a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) and run through a steam turbine to produce additional electricity from the same fuel. Reciprocating engines start fast, handle frequent load swings, and scale by adding units, making them well-suited to grids balancing renewables and on site facilities with volatile loads.
Barton Malow’s work for Lansing Board of Water and Light shows both at work on a single site. The first Delta Energy Park facility is a combined-cycle plant built to provide efficient baseload power with the flexibility to meet peak demand. The second, a reciprocating engine facility on the same site, was built for a different job: fast-responding generation that can ramp up and down to support renewables and absorb the kind of rapid load swings the modern grid demands. It’s the same core capability now sought after in the behind-the-meter market.
These facilities are increasingly being paired with battery energy storage systems, adding another layer of protection. Engines provide baseload generation. Batteries manage the gaps. Together, they’re engineered for the kind of operations that leave nothing to chance.
Where Experience Actually Transfers
Years of experience delivering power infrastructure alongside an active portfolio in solar, wind, and battery storage mean Barton Malow isn’t learning this market from scratch. The electrical intensity, complex site logistics, and tight stakeholder coordination that define thermal energy projects are demands our teams have been meeting for a long time.
What has evolved is the integration at the end. Modern behind-the-meter facilities don’t get built and handed over. They have to be commissioned live with engines ramping, battery systems dispatching, and load shifting in real time, while construction is still wrapping up. You’re flying the plane while you’re finishing building it. That requires a different kind of operational readiness, and it’s where experience across renewable energy, automotive, industrial, and more converges.
Self-perform capability is a meaningful differentiator here. Civil, concrete, rigging, boilermaker, interiors, and steel are all scopes Barton Malow delivers directly. And when labor shortages are affecting the industry, our deep union relationships set us up to attract committed, skilled craft workers to our projects. In a market where many contractors are subcontracting much of that work, that depth of control and continuity of people is the difference between hitting a client’s schedule and explaining why you didn’t.
A Complete Energy Picture
Thermal energy doesn’t exist in a silo. It operates as part of a broader energy strategy, one that looks different for every client and every market. The companies best positioned in this space understand the full picture: how these systems integrate, what reliability demands at this scale, and how to move from concept to energized facility without losing ground along the way.
The momentum in this market is accelerating, and fast. The teams that will define it aren’t the ones arriving with the most resources, but the ones arriving with the right foundation. We’ve been building that foundation for a long time.
About the Author: JD McNulty is a Project Director at Barton Malow with a focus on power and energy. With expertise spanning constructability, contract and equipment procurement, process scheduling, engineering management, and high-voltage transmission and distribution, JD guides projects from pursuit through commissioning. He brings a detail-oriented approach to complex problems and a focus on understanding client needs.
Thermal energy generation refers to natural gas-fired power production — including combined-cycle plants that capture combustion heat and run it through a second turbine to generate additional electricity. Unlike solar or wind, thermal generation is dispatchable, meaning it can be called on at any hour to meet demand. As the grid strains under surging load from data centers and AI facilities, that on-demand reliability makes thermal energy a foundational part of the modern energy picture.
The rise of data centers and the AI boom has placed enormous pressure on an already strained grid. These facilities require massive, continuous power with load that can shift in milliseconds. In high-demand markets, grid interconnection timelines are stretching to years, pushing large power consumers to build their own behind-the-meter generation that operates independently of the grid and is engineered to never go dark.
Thermal, renewable, and storage technologies work together as part of a broader energy strategy. Engines and turbines provide reliable baseload generation. Battery energy storage systems manage the gaps. Solar and wind contribute generation when available. Together, they’re engineered for operations that leave nothing to chance — and Barton Malow is active across all of it.
Barton Malow has spent more than two decades delivering power infrastructure, including projects like Delta Energy Park — a combined-cycle facility delivered for Lansing Board of Water and Light. That foundation, combined with an active portfolio in solar, wind, and battery storage, means Barton Malow arrives at these projects with the electrical expertise, site logistics experience, and stakeholder coordination capability these facilities demand.
Modern behind-the-meter facilities don’t get built and handed over — they have to be commissioned live, with engines ramping, battery systems dispatching, and load shifting in real time while construction is still wrapping up. That kind of operational readiness requires experience across multiple disciplines at once. Barton Malow’s self-perform capabilities in civil, concrete, rigging, boilermaker, and steel work — backed by deep union relationships — provide the continuity and control that keep complex commissioning sequences on track.