The Private Power Boom

“Lost time is never found again.” – Benjamin Franklin

In 1752, my ancestor Benjamin Franklin flew a silk kite into a Philadelphia thunderstorm to prove that lightning was electricity. Everyone knows that story. Fewer know that Franklin also gave us much of the language we still use for electricity – words like “battery,” “charge,” “positive,” and “negative” all trace back to his experiments.

Franklin believed electricity would prove useful one day. But even he couldn’t have imagined just how useful. Some 274 years later, electricity has become the scarcest ingredient in the biggest industry on Earth.

Artificial intelligence (AI) needs a ton of power to run efficiently. Every chatbot question, every model trained, and every image generated draws electricity through a data center packed with chips running hot around the clock.

And America’s biggest technology companies are building those data centers faster than the grid can supply the power…

Consider the scale. Research from Wood Mackenzie estimates that U.S. hyperscalers – giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta – will spend roughly $3.8 trillion on data center growth between 2026 and 2030, with electricity demand from data centers climbing 68% through 2035.

That demand has run headfirst into a supply problem.

By the end of the year, GE Vernova, one of the world’s largest gas-turbine makers, expects to be largely sold out of heavy-duty turbine deliveries through 2030.

If you order a gas turbine today, it could be years before it actually arrives. And a data center that wants to plug into the public grid can wait just as long in the interconnection queue (the waiting line for new connections).

So how is Big Tech responding? It’s actually quite remarkable…

Skipping the Line

Instead of waiting for the grid, Big Tech is bringing its own power to data centers. The industry calls this “behind-the-meter” power: electricity generated on or next to the site and delivered straight to the customer, without ever touching the public grid.

For instance, when OpenAI needed power for one of its biggest data centers in Texas, its developer didn’t wait for the local grid to catch up. It bought its own natural gas turbines and built a power plant right on the property.

I call the whole movement the “Private Power Boom.” And it’s where investors should be looking right now.

The five companies I outline in this report are cashing in on this boom from different angles: delivering natural gas straight to the data center, taking a diversified stake in the nuclear revival, owning some of America’s most valuable nuclear plants, making onsite fuel cells, and building and wiring it all.

At the end of the day, no matter which company’s AI tech comes out on top, these companies will still be getting paid.

One important note to consider: Some of these stocks are relatively small, so they can be volatile. While I believe these are sound long-term investments, you can expect some ups and downs along the way. Don’t be surprised if you see some of these stocks swing wildly in the coming months. Be patient, invest only what you can afford to lose, and avoid concentrating your money in any single stock. (To see all of my current recommendations in The Skousen Report’s model portfolios, click here.)

And now let’s take a look at my five Private Power Boom plays…

Private Power Play No. 1: The Williams Companies

The Williams Companies (NYSE: WMB) moves about one-third of the nation’s natural gas through more than 32,000 miles of pipeline. But it has a second business most investors overlook…

Williams calls it “Power Innovation.” The company builds complete private power systems for data center customers – gas supply, pipeline, and onsite generation in a single package. Because Williams already owns the gas networks its data center customers need, it can deliver a turnkey system faster than almost anyone.

Morgan Stanley analysts have estimated that Williams can get a behind-the-meter plant running in about 18 months.

This summer, Williams completed the first phase of Socrates, a $2 billion project serving a data center customer. Socrates consists of two natural gas-fired power plants, plus the pipelines to feed them. It’s built to supply a large data center in Ohio.

The first phase was finished on time (and on budget), and the second phase is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter. And Socrates is only the start…

Williams now has about $9.6 billion committed to its Power Innovation projects. Five of them are power plants totaling roughly 2.6 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, secured by long-term customer contracts ranging from 10 to 12 1/2 years.

In addition to Socrates, there’s Apollo, a 490-megawatt (MW) project in Ohio… and Aquila, a 520-MW project in Utah. Both are due in 2027 and are backed by 12 1/2-year contracts.

After that, Socrates the Younger (a 340-MW follow-on project in Ohio) and Neo (the biggest of the group at 682 MW) are scheduled for the second half of 2028.

Management says it’s also evaluating another 6 GW of potential projects.

In July, three of Wall Street’s largest private equity firms – Blackstone, Apollo, and KKR, which together manage trillions of dollars – committed $5.34 billion in exchange for a 49% stake in those five power projects. Williams keeps 51%, maintains operational control, and holds the right to buy out its partners beginning in 2033.

Better yet, Blackstone’s target return is about 6.35%, and it doesn’t share in the long-term upside. That upside stays with Williams shareholders.

When three of the most sophisticated investors on Wall Street line up to partner with you on those terms, it tells you something.

Meanwhile, the core pipeline business keeps growing. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, a common measure of cash profit) rose 6% year over year to $1.92 billion. Adjusted earnings per share rose 16% in the first half of the year. Management raised its 2026 adjusted EBITDA forecast to $8.4 billion at the midpoint. It also raised its long-term growth target to 11% or more per year through 2030. That’s significantly higher than its historical target of 5% to 7%.

Williams raised its dividend this year to $2.10 per share annually. And its cash flow covers that dividend by nearly 2 1/2 times. That’s the combination of income and growth I’ve always loved. (Longtime readers know I’ve been bullish on Williams for some time, and it’s a holding in the Skousen Report Foundational Equities Portfolio.)

Wall Street is starting to catch on too. In September, Melius Research began covering Williams with a “Buy” rating and an $84 price target. Melius noted that Williams is the only company in its coverage universe that owns and sells power directly.

Williams also holds investment-grade ratings from all three major agencies. And the Blackstone partnership reduces Williams’ capital exposure and limits corporate debt. So far, the company has delivered its first power project exactly as promised.

Watch for Socrates Phase 2 in the fourth quarter and new earnings reports to trigger a boost in shares. Any new contract drawn from that 6-GW pipeline could be the moment Wall Street stops valuing Williams as a pipeline company.

Action to Take: Buy The Williams Companies (NYSE: WMB) at market. See our portfolio page for current buy instructions.

Private Power Play No. 2: Global X Uranium ETF

Natural gas can power a data center quickly. But Big Tech also wants carbon-free electricity that runs 24 hours a day for decades. That’s a big reason nuclear energy is staging a comeback.

According to the World Nuclear Association, 438 reactors operate worldwide today, another 79 are under construction, and hundreds more have been proposed. In 2025, President Donald Trump signed executive orders aimed at quadrupling U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050. And tech companies are now signing 20-year contracts for nuclear power.

The challenge is that nobody knows which nuclear technology will win. Small modular reactors – compact plants built in a factory and shipped to the site – could transform the industry. Or large conventional plants could keep dominating.

Venture capitalists handle this kind of uncertainty by spreading their bets. I recommend the same approach through the Global X Uranium ETF (NYSE: URA).

As of mid-October, the exchange-traded fund (ETF) held about 57 companies across the entire nuclear supply chain. Its largest holding, at about 23% of the fund, is Cameco, one of the world’s biggest uranium producers. It also holds the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust, which buys and stores uranium… Kazatomprom, the world’s largest producer… miners such as NexGen Energy and Uranium Energy Corp… Centrus Energy, which supplies enriched reactor fuel… and small-reactor developers, such as Oklo and NuScale Power.

If one of these next-generation reactor designs takes off, there’s a good chance you’ll already own it through this ETF.

And the fund’s long-term record is solid. Through June 30, the Global X Uranium ETF returned about 20% a year over five years and nearly 16% a year over 10 years. It’s also an official recommendation in The Skousen Report’s Foundational Equities Portfolio.

The Global X Uranium ETF trades like a stock, so you can buy it in any ordinary brokerage account or IRA. There’s no minimum beyond a single share. The fund manages around $5 billion, and its typical bid-ask spread is only 0.03%. The annual expense ratio is 0.69%.

Now, the nuclear revival will have winners and losers along the way – and that’s exactly why I prefer a basket to a single miner. With this ETF, you don’t need to pick one.

Action to Take: Buy the Global X Uranium ETF (NYSE: URA) at market. See our portfolio page for current buy instructions.

Private Power Play No. 3: Vistra

If the Global X Uranium ETF is the long-term bet on nuclear, Vistra (NYSE: VST) is the company already cashing in on the trend.

Based in Irving, Texas, Vistra operates about 44,000 MW of power generation – natural gas, nuclear, coal, solar, and batteries – along with a large retail electricity business. Its crown jewels are four nuclear plants: Comanche Peak in Texas, Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania, and Perry and Davis-Besse in Ohio.

As recently as 2020, Perry and Davis-Besse were on a path to early retirement. Today, they’re some of the most sought-after power plants in America.

In September 2025, Vistra signed a 20-year agreement to supply Amazon Web Services with up to 1,200 MW from Comanche Peak, with deliveries beginning in late 2027. In January, Meta signed 20-year agreements for more than 2,600 MW from Perry, Davis-Besse, and Beaver Valley. That includes 433 MW of new output from plant upgrades, the largest nuclear upgrades ever backed by a corporate customer in the U.S.

Then, earlier this year, Vistra joined Nvidia, KKR, and the Kuwait Investment Authority to form Helix Digital Infrastructure, a new company with more than $10 billion to build AI data centers for Big Tech, along with the power plants, transmission lines, and fiber connections they need. Vistra committed up to $1 billion and will serve as Helix’s preferred power provider. In other words, as Helix builds new data centers, Vistra will be first in line to power them.

And Vistra was one of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 in 2024. Its shares ran from about $20 in early 2023 to nearly $140 by the end of 2024. Then the stock peaked above $200 last year before coming back down, now trading closer to $140.

So why recommend it now?

The big deals Vistra signed haven’t shown up in its numbers yet. Management’s 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $6.8 billion to $7.6 billion excludes the Meta contracts. So does its 2027 estimate of $7.4 billion to $7.8 billion at the midpoint.

Both also exclude the pending acquisition of Cogentrix Energy, which has already received federal regulatory approval and will add about 5,500 MW of natural gas generation.

The underlying business is already strong too. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA jumped more than 30% to $1.77 billion. Vistra has locked in prices on roughly 100% of its expected 2026 generation and 94% of 2027’s. And since November 2021, the company has bought back about $6.5 billion worth of its own stock, shrinking its share count by roughly 30%. That means every remaining share owns a bigger slice of those nuclear plants.

And at about 13 times next year’s earnings, Vistra trades at a steep discount to the broad market.

Now, it’s important to know that wholesale power prices can swing sharply. And data centers may come online slower than forecast. Goldman Sachs Research warns that only about 50% to 60% of the capacity scheduled for the next two years may enter service on time. But Vistra’s biggest contracts run for 20 years, most of its near-term output is already hedged, and its buybacks keep rewarding patient shareholders.

Near-term catalysts include the start of Perry deliveries to Meta, the Cogentrix deal closing, upcoming earnings releases, and potential new agreements for its remaining nuclear and gas capacity.

Recommendation: Buy Vistra (NYSE: VST) at market. While this should be considered a long-term position, some Members may prefer to use a 25% trailing stop to protect their principal and profits.

Private Power Play No. 4: Bloom Energy

Bloom Energy (NYSE: BE) builds solid oxide fuel cells. A fuel cell produces electricity from natural gas or hydrogen through a chemical reaction, without burning the fuel. Think of it as a battery that never depletes as long as fuel keeps flowing.

Bloom’s systems are modular, so a data center can start with a few units and add more as it grows. Its fuel cells sit right on a data center’s property and deliver power directly to the building, meaning the customer doesn’t have to wait years for a grid connection.

Many customers now run Bloom systems as “islanded” power, completely independent of the grid. And when grid power finally arrives, Bloom’s units can keep running as a backup or be moved to the next data center that needs them.

And because nothing burns, they produce far fewer local air pollutants than a turbine. That makes Bloom a near-perfect fit for the Private Power Boom.

For years, Bloom was a promising company that struggled to make money. But that has recently changed…

In the second quarter, revenue topped $1 billion for the first time, rising 166% to $1.07 billion. Product revenue soared 215%. Bloom earned a $196 million profit, compared with a $43 million loss a year earlier, and it generated $226 million in cash from operations. Management also raised its 2026 revenue forecast to a range of $3.9 billion to $4.2 billion, roughly double last year’s.

CEO KR Sridhar says all the major U.S. hyperscalers, plus more than a dozen U.S. AI labs, cloud providers, and data center operators, have validated and approved Bloom’s systems. He summarized why customers are paying up: “Time to power is really time to token revenue.” In other words, every month a data center sits dark waiting for electricity is a month of lost AI sales.

Bloom’s financing partner, Brookfield, expanded its framework to fund Bloom projects from $5 billion to $25 billion in June. Bloom also introduced Power Connect, which cuts onsite installation time by more than 40%, and an 800-volt direct current power design built to eliminate the need for transformers inside AI data centers.

And in September, Bloom joined the S&P 500.

Now, the stock does trade at roughly 57 times future earnings. And in July, a short seller alleged that Bloom sourced scandium, a key material, from China through intermediary countries, and class-action lawsuits followed. However, Bloom rejects the allegations and says its scandium supply doesn’t depend on China.

Its growth is real, the profits are real, and the customer list keeps lengthening.

Recommendation: Buy Bloom Energy (NYSE: BE) at market. While this should be considered a long-term position, some Members may prefer to use a 25% trailing stop to protect their principal and profits.

Private Power Play No. 5: Quanta Services

During the California gold rush, some of the surest fortunes went to the merchants who sold picks, shovels, and sturdy trousers to the miners. The Private Power Boom has its own version of that.

Every project mentioned in this report – a gas-fired plant, a nuclear upgrade, a fuel cell installation, or a new transmission line – needs someone to build it, wire it, and connect it.

More often than not, that someone is Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR).

The Houston-based company is an industry leader in building and maintaining America’s power grid. For decades, its bread and butter was working for electric utilities: stringing high-voltage transmission lines, building substations, and upgrading the local lines that carry power to homes and businesses.

It performs roughly 80% to 85% of its work with its own craft-skilled workforce of linemen, electricians, and welders rather than hiring subcontractors. When skilled labor is scarce, that self-perform model gives customers something priceless: certainty on cost and timing.

Now, you may be wondering why a report about power beyond the traditional grid would feature a company that builds the grid. The answer is simple. Private power still needs wires, substations, switchgear, and high-voltage equipment. Someone has to install all of it, whether the power plant sits 100 miles away or right next door to the data center. Quanta gets paid either way.

Technology and data center work now makes up about 15% to 20% of Quanta’s revenue, and it has spent years buying the capabilities to grow that share. It acquired data center electrical contractor Cupertino Electric in 2024. This year, it added Phalcon, a 4,100-employee electrical contractor serving data centers in the Northeast… and Enerfab, a fabrication specialist that serves power generation and data center customers.

Quanta is also attacking one of the industry’s biggest equipment shortages. In June, it formed a joint venture with Hyosung HICO to manufacture high-voltage circuit breakers rated up to 800 kilovolts in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. And it was named the top U.S. solar contractor by Solar Power World for the third time in four years, after installing more than 6,100 MW of solar capacity in 2025.

And the numbers are outstanding.

Second quarter revenue rose 41% to $9.6 billion. Adjusted earnings per share jumped 71% to $4.24. Free cash flow reached $886 million in the quarter alone. Best of all, Quanta’s backlog hit a record $53.4 billion, up 49% from $35.8 billion a year earlier. Management now expects 2026 revenue of $39.3 billion to $39.7 billion and adjusted earnings of $16.45 to $16.95 per share. And Moody’s upgraded Quanta’s credit rating in June.

Here’s the part I find most exciting. Management says many of the largest transmission and power generation projects are still in the engineering stage and haven’t entered the backlog yet. That means today’s record backlog may understate what’s coming.

Now, the stock trades at about 33 times forward earnings. But a $53 billion backlog and customers spread across utilities, technology, and industry give me confidence.

Recommendation: Buy Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR) at market. While this should be considered a long-term position, some Members may prefer to use a 25% trailing stop to protect their principal and profits.

“Lost Time Is Never Found Again”

For AI companies, every month without power is revenue lost for good.

And I’ve personally seen what energy scarcity does to an economy.

My first job out of college was as an economic analyst for the CIA during the OPEC oil embargo, and this lesson has stuck with me since…

When energy gets scarce, the companies that can deliver it hold the cards and get paid on long contracts.

The five investments in this report each profit in a different way from the power shortage AI companies are facing.

Williams gives you a growing dividend plus a fast-growing private power business. The Global X Uranium ETF gives you a diversified stake in the nuclear revival. Vistra gives you nuclear plants already under long-term contract, at a discounted price. Bloom gives you the fastest-growing onsite power technology in the market. And Quanta builds and connects all of it.

Not every AI company will survive the shakeout ahead. But whichever ones win, they’ll all need electricity. And I’m convinced these five investments could be among the biggest winners of this final stage of the boom.