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Fervo Energy, the leading next-generation geothermal startup, is ramping up plans to build out new power plants.
The Houston-based company has signed a three-year binding agreement with Turboden America, which will supply 1.75 gigawatts of organic Rankine cycle turbine capacity for Fervo’s forthcoming geothermal projects in the United States. The startup will use the equipment to convert heat pulled from deep underground into carbon-free electricity for data centers and the grid.
Fervo, which is reportedly preparing for an IPO, is currently building the first 100 megawatts of its 500-MW Cape Station in Beaver County, Utah. The project, which will be the world’s largest enhanced geothermal system, is slated to start producing power later this year.
Turboden America is already supplying over half of Cape Station’s total turbine capacity. The company, a subsidiary of the Italian manufacturer Turboden, says it will expand its U.S. operations to fulfill the deal, which calls for nearly three dozen 50-MW power-plant units.
The agreement, announced Tuesday, sheds more light on Fervo’s development plans beyond Cape Station, which broke ground about two and half years ago.
Fervo declined to share specific details about where and when it intends to deploy the new units. However, the company has ​“multiple projects in various stages of progress” and is pursuing ​“multi-year, multi-gigawatt offtake partnerships with both utilities and hyperscalers,” Sarah Jewett, Fervo’s senior vice president of strategy, told Canary Media in an email.
She added that the Cape Station site has an estimated 4.3 GW of capacity potential, based on internal and independent estimates. Fervo is also developing an enhanced geothermal system in Nevada, called Corsac Station, which is set to supply 115 MW of electricity to Google and the utility NV Energy.
This week’s development with Turboden ​“helps streamline project execution and accelerate deployment as our project pipeline advances,” Jewett said.
Together, Cape Station and the new turbines represent over 2.2 GW in geothermal power capacity. If completed and brought online, that amount would be equal to more than 50% of the current installed capacity of U.S. geothermal plants — which provide less than 1% of the country’s total electricity generation. Virtually all those existing plants rely on conventional hydrothermal resources, such as geysers and hot springs.
“Geothermal energy will be essential in stabilizing a strained power grid with clean, firm energy, and Fervo has shown strong leadership in advancing the sector,” Paolo Bertuzzi, president of Turboden America and CEO of Turboden, said in a statement. ​“With this announcement, we are prepared to scale delivery in the U.S. market and add megawatts of new generation wherever and however they are required.”
In signing the deal, Fervo and Turboden are aiming to avoid a potential bottleneck that threatens to slow the larger buildout of next-generation geothermal: the power-plant supply chain.
Today, the global market for organic Rankine cycle systems, heat exchangers, and other components is concentrated among a small set of manufacturers based in Israel, Turkey, and parts of Europe. Until very recently, those companies had little reason to scale production or revamp designs, given the sector’s limited growth. Most geothermal equipment is highly customized, and it can take over 18 months to bring it stateside.
“The ORC market has always been a very niche market and quite stable in the past,” Bertuzzi told Canary Media in an earlier interview.
But recent U.S. innovations in geothermal technology are making it possible to harness Earth’s heat from a wider range of places than conventional geothermal plants can reach. For instance, Fervo’s Cape Station uses horizontal drilling techniques and fiber-optic sensing tools to fracture hard, impermeable rocks and create artificial reservoirs. The startups Sage Geosystems and Quaise Energy are taking a similar approach, while companies like Rodatherm Energy and XGS Energy are building novel closed-loop systems deep underground.
Turboden, which is owned by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, said it can presently deliver about 20 of its 50-MW turbine units per year. Nearly half of its global business is from the geothermal industry. The rest is from biomass-burning power plants as well as industrial facilities that use waste heat to generate electricity, such as data centers and gas-compressor stations.
The manufacturer is now set to scale production in both Italy and the United States in order to meet the growing demand from next-generation geothermal developers like Fervo. In an email, Turboden said it is adopting ​“multiple business and procurement models … to ensure larger volumes and faster delivery times, including domestic content to support tax credit mechanisms for American customers.”
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