powering up

Houston geothermal company grows relationship with Google to provide power to Nevada

Through a first-of-its-kind proposal, Las Vegas-based public utility NV Energy would supply geothermal power generated by Fervo Energy for Google’s two data centers in Nevada. Screenshot via Google

Houston-based Fervo Energy’s geothermal energy soon will help power the world’s most popular website.

Through a first-of-its-kind proposal, Las Vegas-based public utility NV Energy would supply 115 megawatts of geothermal power generated by Fervo for Google’s two data centers in Nevada. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

In 2021, Google teamed up with Fervo to develop a pilot project for geothermal power in Nevada. Two years later, electricity from this project started flowing into the Nevada grid serving the two Google data centers. Google spent $600 million to build each of the centers, which are in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb, and Storey County, which is east of Reno.

The proposed agreement with NV Energy would bring about 25 times more geothermal power capacity to the Nevada grid, Google says, and enable more around-the-clock clean power for the search engine company’s Nevada data centers.

A data center gobbles up 10 to 50 times the energy per square foot of floor space that a typical office building does, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

“NV Energy and Google’s partnership to develop new solutions to bring clean … energy technology — like enhanced geothermal — onto Nevada’s grid at this scale is remarkable. This innovative proposal will not be paid for by NV Energy’s other customers but will help ensure all our customers benefit from cleaner, greener energy resources,” Doug Cannon, president and CEO of NV Energy, says in a Google blog post.

Utility regulators still must sign off on the proposal.

“If approved, it provides a blueprint for other utilities and large customers in Nevada to accelerate clean energy goals,” Cannon says.

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A View From HETI

A new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that wind and solar supplied more than 30 percent of ERCOT’s electricity in the first nine months of 2025. Photo via Unsplash.

Since 2023, wind and solar power have been the fastest-growing sources of electricity for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and increasingly are meeting stepped-up demand, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The report says utility-scale solar generated 50 percent more electricity for ERCOT in the first nine months this year compared with the same period in 2024. Meanwhile, electricity generated by wind power rose 4 percent in the first nine months of this year versus the same period in 2024.

Together, wind and solar supplied 36 percent of ERCOT’s electricity in the first nine months of 2025.

Heavier reliance on wind and solar power comes amid greater demand for ERCOT electricity. In the first nine months of 2025, ERCOT recorded the fastest growth in electricity demand (5 percent) among U.S. power grids compared with the same period last year, according to the report.

“ERCOT’s electricity demand is forecast to grow faster than that of any other grid operator in the United States through at least 2026,” the report says.

EIA forecasts demand for ERCOT electricity will climb 14 percent in the first nine months of 2026 compared with the same period this year. This anticipated jump coincides with a number of large data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities coming online next year.

The ERCOT grid covers about 90 percent of Texas’ electrical load.

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