Fervo Energy Begins Selling Power From First Enhanced Geothermal Plant

Geothermal company Fervo Energy announced Thursday that it began selling electricity from its Cape Station power plant to the grid on September 30, one day ahead of schedule.

The milestone makes Fervo the first enhanced geothermal company to reach commercial operation. The plant synchronized with the grid about a week earlier, bringing online the first third of what is expected to become a 100-megawatt facility. Fervo has said the broader site in Utah could eventually generate as much as 4 gigawatts of electricity.

"No team has ever built a project like this anywhere in the world, and we did it ahead of schedule," said Fervo co-founder and CEO Tim Latimer in a statement.

From groundbreaking to commercial operation, the first block at Cape Station took 23 months to complete. Fervo says it is refining its process and aims to bring future blocks online in as little as 18 months.

That kind of speed could prove attractive to data center operators, who have been racing to secure new sources of electricity generation to meet surging demand. Geothermal projects can also be developed in phases, much like data centers themselves, allowing companies to add capacity as demand grows. Google, Southern California Edison, and other buyers have already committed to purchasing power from Cape Station.

Fervo is among several companies developing enhanced geothermal technology, which drills deeper than conventional geothermal plants to reach hotter rock, unlocking sites that traditional methods cannot access. The approach borrows drilling techniques from the oil and gas industry.

Founded in 2017, Fervo raised more than $1.3 billion as a private company from investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Congruent Ventures, and Capricorn Investment Group. The company went public in May in an upsized IPO that raised $1.9 billion.