ADVERTISEABOUT USSUBMIT A STORYSUBSCRIBETERMS OF USEPRIVACY POLICY
Visit our family of Brands

Daikin completes solar plant to power massive Houston-area campus

switched on

Daikin Industries' new solar power plant at its Waller-area campus will power its central chiller plant and is designed to connect to the campus' electric grid. Photo courtesy Daikin.

Japanese HVAC company Daikin Industries has completed a nearly one-megawatt solar power plant at its Daikin Comfort Technologies North America campus southeast of Waller.

Daikin says the new plant at its 4.2 million-square-foot Daikin Texas Technology Park will eliminate an estimated 845 metric tons of carbon emissions each year. The park houses the largest HVAC factory in North America.

“Daikin’s unwavering commitment to innovation drives us to continually perfect the air we share. With the launch of this solar project, we’re one step closer to being a net-zero CO2 emission factory by 2030,” Nathan Walker, senior vice president of environmental business development of locally based Daikin Comfort Technologies North America, said in a release. “This installation is a significant step in reducing our carbon footprint and underscores our commitment to energy efficiency, sustainability, and environmental stewardship.”

Solar power from the new facility will power the Daikin campus’ central chiller plant, which circulates about 125,000 gallons of chilled water annually and 75,000 gallons of hot water in the winter. Also, the solar setup is designed to connect to the electric grid that serves the campus. About 10,000 people work at the campus.

Daikin, a Fortune 1000 company, may not have been a familiar name to some Houstonians until January, when it took over the naming rights for the Houston Astros’ stadium. The naming rights agreement for Daikin Park, formerly Minute Maid Park, expires during the Astros’ 2039 season. The stadium had been named Minute Maid Park since 2002.

“The Astros are the pride of Houston, an organization that has built resiliency in hard times, and have succeeded to be a winning team. The coming together of both our organizations is a symbol of our love for our hometown and the communities of the Greater Houston area,” Takayuki “Taka” Inoue, executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer at Daikin Comfort Technologies North America, said in November.

From Your Site Articles
The Astros' stadium will have a new name in 2025. Courtesy of the Houston Astros

Global industrial company Daikin makes deal with Houston Astros on stadium rename

big deal

The Houston Astros' home will get a new name on Jan. 1, becoming Daikin Park under an agreement through the 2039 season the team announced Monday.

The stadium opened as Enron Field in 2000 as part of a 30-year, $100 million agreement but the name was removed in March 2002 following Enron Corp.'s bankruptcy filing and the ballpark briefly became Astros Field.

It was renamed Minute Maid Park in June 2002 as part of a deal with The Minute Maid Co., a Houston-based subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Co. Then-Astros owner Drayton McLane said at the time the agreement was for 28 years and for more than $100 million.

The new deal is with Daikin Comfort Technologies North America Inc., a subsidiary of Daikin Industries Ltd., which is based in Japan and is a leading air conditioning company.

Minute Maid will remain an Astros partner through 2029, the team said.

In August, Daikin, which has its 4.2 million-square-foot Daikin Texas Technology Park in Waller, Texas, partnered with the city of Houston to provide advanced air conditioning and heating solutions to help homeowners with energy efficiency and general comfort. The company pledged install up to 30 horizontal discharge inverter FIT heat pump units over the next three years.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

SLB to expand data center cooling business via $4 billion acquisition

cool deal

Houston’s SLB has announced plans to acquire German thermal management and heat exchange technology organization Kelvion for approximately $4 billion.

SLB reports in a news release that the acquisition is expected to boost its Data Center Solutions business, as thermal management technologies are key to cooling artificial-intelligence-related infrastructure. Data centers continue to pose numerous challenges, but SLB believes thermal management technology can help ease energy burdens.

“Data centers are becoming more sophisticated and energy-intensive, and customers are increasingly looking for partners that can optimize how critical systems work together across the facility and help bring new capacity online faster,” Gavin Rennick, president of SLB’s New Energy and Industrial business, said in the release. “Thermal management is central to that challenge, and this acquisition allows us to address it directly by delivering more integrated cooling solutions, accelerating innovation, optimizing thermal efficiency, and more directly embedding thermal management into our modular infrastructure offering.”

SLB will acquire Kelvion from funds managed by New York-based financial services group Apollo Global Management Inc. for approximately $3.4 billion in cash and will assume about $700 million of debt, according to the release. The deal is expected to close in Q1 of 2027.

SLB says the acquisition will help it dramatically scale revenue generated by the data center sector.

“This transaction accelerates our ambition to become an industrial technology partner to the data center industry and help customers address the growing infrastructure complexity required to scale AI,” Olivier Le Peuch, CEO of SLB, added in a news release. “Kelvion advances our path toward more integrated data center infrastructure solutions, expands our addressable market — more than doubling our revenue opportunity per gigawatt of delivered capacity — and allows us to scale both our offerings and the global reach of the business.”

SLB reports that it expects its Data Center Solutions business revenues to grow by more than 90 percent annually between 2024 and 2026.

If the acquisition is approved, the combined company will target revenue of $4.5 billion to $5 billion for its data center solutions business in 2028, according to the release.

Kelvion has previously served customers in AI infrastructure, energy system transformation and energy/ industrial markets. Its past work focuses on heat pumps, renewables, carbon capture and processing solutions for thermal management. According to the news release, Kelvion's data center revenue is expected to reach about $1.2 billion in 2026, and the sector is considered the company’s "largest and fastest-growing end market.

Tesla files plans for Houston-area solar plant & more top energy news

Trending news

Editor's note: Houston energy news in August was fueled by Tesla solar plans, a massive deal for ERock, and Halliburton Labs' newest cohort. Below are the five most-read EnergyCapitalHTX stories published during the second half of the month.

Telsa eyes Houston area for $10 billion solar manufacturing plant

Electric vehicle and clean energy company Tesla is considering building a new $10.1 billion solar cell manufacturing facility in Fort Bend County, according to documents filed with the Texas Comptroller’s Office. If approved, the plant, called Project Sun City, would be located on a 3,050-acre site off FM 762 and FM 1994 in Richmond, Texas. Tesla aims to finish construction in 2028, with the plant being operational by early 2029. Continue reading.

Houston’s data center capacity set to grow 80%, report says

Houston stands to benefit from constraints dogging data center markets elsewhere in Texas, a new report indicates. This comes against the backdrop of Texas surpassing Virginia as the country’s top state for data centers — and amid deepening opposition to these facilities. The report, published by commercial real estate services provider JLL, foresees Houston continuing to gain traction in data center development as occupants seek “scalable alternatives” to Texas markets experiencing supply-and-demand imbalances. Continue reading.

EV surge could shutter 40 refineries by 2040, Wood Mackenzie report warns

The rise of electric vehicles could spell trouble for Houston’s oil and gas sector, a new report suggests. But the oil and gas industry stands to benefit from potential sluggishness in U.S. adoption of EVs. If worldwide EV adoption rises as expected, global oil demand could fall by five million barrels per day by 2040, accelerating the closure of about 40 oil refineries, says the report, published by energy research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. The firm’s North American hub is in Houston. Continue reading.

ERock scores Anthropic deal, sees order backlog soar to $1.7B

Two months after its $400 million IPO, Houston-based ERock (NYSE: EROC) has landed a power-generator deal with AI powerhouse Anthropic, owner of the Claude platform. In its Q2 earnings report, ERock says it will provide equipment to Anthropic with a 470-megawatt capacity. ERock specializes in utility-grade, onsite microgrid power systems for data centers and other customers. The company previously did business as Enchanted Rock. Continue reading.

Halliburton Labs adds 3 energy, materials startups to Houston incubator

Three new companies have joined Halliburton Labs, the incubator for early-stage energy and hardtech startups run by Houston energy giant Halliburton. Halliburton Labs provides the emerging companies with mentorship, industry connections, laboratory access and other resources as they work toward commercialization. The latest companies to join the incubator focus on battery materials, resource recovery and gas separation solutions to address some of the "key bottlenecks in the energy and industrial landscape." Continue reading.

Houston geothermal startup bumps Series B to $180M with Nabors investment

fresh funding

Houston-based geothermal startup Quaise Energy has closed its Series B fundraising round at $180 million after inking a significant investment from another local energy leader.

Quaise, which is developing a 50-megawatt superhot geothermal plant in Oregon, announced a "first close" of the round last month at $134 million, led by San Francisco-based investment firm Prelude Ventures. The $46 million bump has been fueled by a $35 million investment from Houston-based Nabors Industries.

The funding will go toward the continued development of the company's superhot geothermal plant, Project Obsidian, as well as the commercialization of Quaise's millimeter-wave drilling system, according to a news release.

“We are unlocking the most powerful clean energy source on Earth, and the Series B signals deep conviction across a wide range of investors,” Carlos Araque, Quaise CEO and president, said in the release. “Nabors is an invaluable partner as we move millimeter wave drilling to full commercial operations at Project Obsidian and beyond.”

Nabors, a repeat investor in Quaise, has also entered into a strategic framework agreement with Quaise. Under the agreement, Quaise will have access to a dedicated Nabors land rig and drilling platform. Nabors will also provide expertise in reservoir modeling, well design and drilling strategy.

Last year, Quaise drilled to a depth of about 330 feet using its millimeter-wave technology at its field site in Central Texas. Canary Media previously reported that Quaise plans to drill to nearly 3,300 feet later this year and to deploy its millimeter-wave technology at its power plant in 2027. The plant is expected to deliver power to the Pacific Northwest in 2030.

Quaise and Nabors say the partnership will improve drilling performance, reduce costs and accelerate project timelines.

“Superhot geothermal has the potential to make clean energy ubiquitous. That is why we are excited about our close relationship with Quaise,” Anthony Petrello, president and CEO of Nabors, added in the release. “Quaise’s millimeter wave technology changes the equation entirely by reaching superhot rock at temperatures and depths that are inaccessible with conventional drilling, transforming geothermal from a location-dependent resource into a global energy solution. Combined with Nabors’ drilling expertise and infrastructure, we see a path to gigawatt-scale geothermal power that no other company can offer today.”

Quaise reports that with the latest funding, it has now raised $280 million. It raised $21 million in a Series A1 financing round in 2024 and a $52 million Series A in 2022.

The company announced in March that it was aiming to raise $200 million for Project Obsidian through $100 million in Series B funding, plus an additional $100 million from grants, debt and project-level finance.

View All Listings