Q&A

Houston founder on why geothermal is a 'cornerstone' tech for energy transition

In a Q&A with EnergyCapital, Cindy Taff of Sage Geosystems explains why she's so optimistic about geothermal and her company's technology. Photo courtesy of Sage

Geothermal energy is an integral part of decarbonizing the energy industry, and Sage Geosystems CEO Cindy Taff believes her company's tech has what it takes to lead the way.

Founded in Houston in 2020, Sage Geosystems is focused on two business lines — energy storage and geothermal. In addition to developing these technologies, Taff says Sage has "cracked the code" on both reducing costs and maximizing electricity output. Sage has customers ranging from Nabors, the world’s largest land-based drilling company, and Virya LLC, an investor in climate ventures with high impact of eliminating global greenhouse gas emissions or sequestering CO2

In a Q&A with EnergyCapital, she explains why she's so optimistic about geothermal and her company's technology.

EnergyCapital: Why do you believe geothermal has a major role to play in the energy transition?

Cindy Taff: Geothermal energy is not just a contender in the energy transition; it is a cornerstone. The question isn’t if we can drive down the costs to be competitive with wind, solar, and natural gas—it’s when. As renewable credits for solar and wind begin to expire, these industries will face the reality of their “real costs.”

As a 24/7 renewable energy source, it provides a constant and reliable power supply, unlike the intermittent nature of solar and wind. Moreover, the rising costs of lithium-ion batteries, driven by the increasing scarcity of lithium and cobalt, further underscore geothermal’s economic viability.

My extensive experience in both geothermal and the O&G sector is a testament to the synergistic relationship between these industries. The skills honed in O&G are not only transferable—they are essential to advancing geothermal technologies. In summary, the O&G industry can make a huge impact to geothermal by systematically driving down costs while scaling up, which is exactly what we did for unconventional shales.

EC: When it comes to finding partners or investors, what are you looking for? What should potential partners/investors know about Sage?

CT: Our technology is ready to scale today, not five to 10 years into the future. We will deliver our first energy storage power plant in 2024 and our first enhanced geothermal power plant in 2025. We are looking for synergies with investors, such as companies with power market or O&G expertise.

In addition, we seek to partner with others who have local content and relationships in places around the world to enable us to quickly and broadly scale our technologies. Sage's technologies are extremely flexible, in that we can deliver energy storage or enhanced geothermal to the utility grid or behind-the-meter to targeted commercial customers, including a dedicated microgrid (i.e., for the U.S. Air Force). Our technologies can provide electricity to remote locations such as mining operations or to large population centers such as Houston, and everything in between.

EC: What's the biggest challenge Sage is facing as an energy transition startup and how do you plan to tackle it?

CT: A common misunderstanding about Sage is that we only do energy storage or that we only do geothermal. However, we do both and the technologies build on one another. Essentially, our energy storage technologies will allow us to "walk" before we "run" with geothermal. On a related point, at this point in the energy transition, time to commercialization and affordability of new clean technology are the leading factors in terms of climate impact. As the first geothermal company to deliver a cost-effective commercial enhanced geothermal system, we are poised to truly make a meaningful difference.

EC: As a woman in a male-dominated industry tackling a global problem, what's been your biggest lesson learned? What's your advice to fellow energy tech female founders?

CT: In my journey as a woman in the energy tech industry, I’ve been fortunate to focus on the work and the global challenges we’re addressing, rather than on any gender-based obstacles. My biggest lesson learned is that innovation and leadership know no gender. Success is driven by perseverance, vision, and collaboration.

———

This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Trending News

A View From HETI

Greentown Labs and MassChallenge have formed a strategic partnership. Photo courtesy Greentown Labs.

Climatetech incubator Greentown Labs has formed a strategic partnership with global zero-equity accelerator MassChallenge.

The two organizations have headquarters in the Boston area, while Greentown Labs is also co-located in Houston. MassChallenge has a hub in Dallas, as well as others in Israel, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The new partnership aims to strengthen the ecosystem for early-stage climatetech startups by providing more mentorship, support and a broader commercialization network for members, according to a news release.

Greentown Labs will share its expertise with the 23 startups in MassChallenge's first climate-specific accelerator, known as the MassChallenge Early Stage Climate program. Additionally, Greentown Labs members will benefit from MassChallenge's network of expert mentors, judges, entrepreneurs, partners, investors, philanthropists and others.

“There are so many synergies and shared values between MassChallenge and Greentown that launching a collaboration like this feels like a natural next step for our organizations as we strive to support as many early-stage climate founders as possible,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, Greentown Labs CEO, said in the news release. “We want to reduce the friction and barriers to market for these climate entrepreneurs and ultimately increase their opportunity for success—ecosystem collaboration is an essential part of solving these challenges together.”

Combined, Greentown and MassChallenge report that they have supported more than 4,500 founders and more than 1,000 climate startups. MassChallenge has awarded more than $18 million in equity-free grants to startups, which have gone on to raise over $15 billion, since it was founded in 2009. Greentown Labs has helped more than 575 startups raise more than $8.2 billion in funding since it launched in 2011.

Greentown recently added five startups to its Houston community and 14 other climatetech ventures to its Boston incubator. It also announced its third ACCEL cohort, which works to advance BIPOC-led startups in the climatetech space, earlier this year. Read more here.

Trending News