Houston geothermal company wins power purchase agreement in California

Fervo Energy, a Houston-based geothermal energy provider, has signed one of the nation’s largest utilities as a new customer.

Under two 15-year agreements, Southern California Edison has agreed to buy a total of 320 megawatts of geothermal power from Fervo. Financial terms were not disclosed. The energy will be enough to power the equivalent of 350,000 homes.

Southern California Edison, based in Rosemead, Calif., serves about 15 million people in a 50,000-square-mile area in California.

The utility will purchase power from Fervo’s 400-megawatt Cape Station plant under construction in southwestern Utah. The first phase of the plant, which will produce 70 megawatts of electricity, is expected to be operational by 2026.

“This announcement is another step in California’s commitment to clean, carbon-free electricity,” California Energy Commission Chairman David Hochschild said in a statement. Press release.

“Enhanced geothermal systems complement our abundant wind and solar resources by providing critical baseload when these sources are limited,” he adds. “This is essential to ensuring reliability as we continue our transition away from fossil fuels.”

In June, Fervo announcement It would provide 115 megawatts of geothermal power to Google’s two data centers in Nevada. Two years ago, Fervo signed an agreement with energy aggregators in California to provide 53 megawatts of geothermal power from Cape Station.

“As electrification increases and climate change strains already fragile infrastructure, geothermal will only play a larger role in U.S. electricity markets,” said Dawn Owens, Fervo’s head of development and commercial markets.