The geothermal startup will supply 400 MW from its Cape Station project to a Google data center in Utah. An initial phase of the project will come online this fall.
Fervo Energy inked a landmark deal to supply Google with nearly 400 megawatts of clean electricity from the startup’s geothermal project in southwest Utah.
The agreement is the largest of its kind for a next-generation geothermal system — an emerging technology that involves drilling deep into hot, dry rock to use underground heat for producing power. Fervo is investing over $2 billion to build what could become the biggest such system in the world when it is completed in 2028.
Securing customer contracts is an essential step for a novel project like Fervo’s Cape Station. Without a clear buyer, it can be difficult to attract financing for first-of-a-kind facilities, even if they promise transformative benefits for the power sector. Fervo, which went public in May, saw its shares jump 15% on Tuesday morning following news of the Google power deal.
Houston-based Fervo is now developing the first, 100-MW phase of Cape Station and expects to start generating test power from a 33-MW unit in the fourth quarter of this year. The deal with Google supports the buildout of the second, 400-MW phase, which is slated to be up and running in about two years.
Google said it intends to buy the geothermal power for a potential data center in Utah.
Google said it hasn’t determined where it will build the Utah data center that will run on Cape Station’s power.
Under the new deal, Google has the option to expand its Cape Station agreement by around 600 MW by June 2030. The tech company and Fervo also have a deal in place allowing Google the right of first refusal to purchase up to 3 GW of electricity from certain new geothermal power plants the startup develops.