Rolls-Royce Power Systems, headquartered in Friedrichshafen, has unveiled a new family of modular gas engine power plants capable of delivering five to several hundred megawatts from preconfigured 10, 20, and 30 MW factory-tested modules. Led by President Tobias Ostermaier and Senior Vice President Michael Stipa, the turnkey solution directly supports the German Government’s Power Plant Strategy and can connect to the grid within 12 to 18 months of ordering.
Here is the problem the energy transition has not yet solved. When wind stops and clouds cover the sun—a phenomenon German grid operators call Dunkelflaute—renewable generation collapses. These dark lulls last anywhere from 10 hours to several weeks. Until now, the only reliable backstops were coal, nuclear, or massive centralized gas plants that take years to permit and build.
What the product actually does is surprisingly straightforward. It replaces a single, slow-to-build monolithic power station with dozens of small, identical gas engine modules that arrive on trucks. Each 10, 20, or 30 MW unit is preconfigured and tested at the factory in Friedrichshafen, then shipped to site and plugged in like industrial-scale batteries. Utilities can start with one module and add more as demand grows—or switch individual units on and off to match second-by-second grid conditions.
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The basic function for grid operators is finally having flexible, dispatchable power that scales with renewable volatility. According to Tobias Ostermaier, President of Stationary Power Solutions at Rolls-Royce Power Systems, “With our modular gas engine power plants, we are implementing the German Government’s Power Plant Strategy quickly and economically. Our partner network ensures speed and local value creation.”
There is, of course, a limitation. These are gas engines. They run on natural gas, biomethane, or biogas today, and they are certified H₂-ready for future hydrogen blending or full conversion . But the infrastructure for green hydrogen does not yet exist at scale, and the modules will initially burn fossil gas. The company is explicit that sustainability gains come from enabling renewables to dominate the grid while providing clean backup—and from the option to switch to biomethane or synthetic e-fuels produced from captured CO₂ and green hydrogen . Still, for pure decarbonization purists, gas remains gas.
The summary value, however, is difficult to overstate. Germany’s Power Plant Strategy envisions 10 GW of new hydrogen-ready gas capacity to backstop renewables. Rolls-Royce claims its modular approach can deliver these plants in 12 to 18 months, not the decade typically required for conventional gas infrastructure. More than 17 GW of the company’s mtu gensets are already installed globally, serving utilities and data centers that cannot tolerate interruption . This is not laboratory research. It is scaled, bankable hardware.
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The innovator behind the strategy is Michael Stipa, Senior Vice President for Strategy, Business and Product Development at Rolls-Royce Power Systems. His engineering team, based in Friedrichshafen, adapted the company’s proven mtu Series 4000 gas engine platform—already deployed in projects from Nigeria to Tanzania to the UK—into a plug-and-play power plant architecture . “True resilience comes from decentralization, not centralization,” Stipa said at the E-world energy trade fair in Essen, where the system launched this week. “An energy system based on many distributed, modular generation units is less susceptible to large-scale disruptions and bottlenecks.”
The system also serves as bridging power. In remote sites or industrial parks without immediate grid access, the modules provide continuous electricity until a permanent connection or alternative source—including nuclear—comes online. At that point, they seamlessly switch to standby backup mode .
Rolls-Royce is presenting the new solution at E-world 2026 from February 10 to 12, booth 6H106 in Hall 6. The company is already in active discussions with German utilities and international data center developers. According to Ostermaier, the combination of speed, scalability, and hydrogen readiness makes these plants “the strong backbone for the energy transition.”
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The question is no longer whether renewables can generate enough electricity. It is whether the grid can survive when they do not. Rolls-Royce is betting that the answer arrives on a flatbed truck, preconfigured, tested, and ready to fire.
