Wärtsilä chief executive Jaakko Eskola has said that the company’s oil- and gas-fired power plant business is “developing extremely well”, according to the Financial Times. The Finnish company’s smaller power plants (for example 50 MW output) are able to start up within four minutes, making them versatile and particularly useful for integrating with renewable power generation. Wärtsilä last year was the world’s third-largest supplier of gas and liquid fuel generation capacity at 15%, behind GE at 28% and Siemens at 26%, and while the larger two companies both shed jobs last year, Wärtsilä increased its order intake by 16%. Growth has come from regions such as south-east Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, but also from the US and Europe. Mr Eskola’s view is that “Coal will disappear, and eventually diesel and heavy fuel will disappear too. Gas has a future for many years because solar, wind and batteries cannot do it all on their own. But I do not believe large turbines will be the solution.”