TMEIC will move its headquarters to Houston next year and open a new manufacturing facility in the region later this year. Photo via tmeic.com

A Japanese company has announced its moving its United States headquarters to Houston and is gearing up top open its new Houston-area factory as well.

TMEIC Corporation Americas, previously headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, will officially be located in Houston, effect March of 2025. Additionally, the company will open a state-of-the-art 144,000-square-foot facility in Brookshire, which will be dedicated to manufacturing utility-scale PV inverters. The expansion is expected to create 300 local jobs.

The TMEIC group specializes in photovoltaic inverters and energy storage systems, and has over 50 GW of renewable energy systems installed worldwide as of July 2024.

"We are excited to make these investments for an expanded presence in the Houston area with the relocation of our headquarters and the opening of our new manufacturing facility,” Manmeet S. Bhatia, president and CEO of TMEIC Corporation Americas, says in a news release. ”These investments and expansions will potentially create up to 300 jobs in the local community,"

The relocation to the Houston as the energy capital of the world is part of TMEIC’s strategic goals for growth in “renewable energy technology, domestic based manufacturing, and bolstering its global sustainability efforts,” according to a news release.

The Brookshire facility will be complete by October of 2024, and will be close to TMEIC’s existing uninterruptible power supply and medium voltage drive manufacturing plant in Katy. When operational, it will have the capacity to produce 9 gigawatts annually.

“This strategic expansion underscores TMEIC's dedication to the renewable energy industry, advancing clean energy technology, maintaining strong client relationships, and competing on a global basis while proudly manufacturing in the United States,” Bhatia adds.

Fervo Energy went from a 5,158-square-foot space to a 23,782-square-foot office in downtown Houston. Photo via Hines

Houston geothermal energy startup grows local office presence

report

On the heels of landing more than $240 million in venture capital, Houston-based geothermal power provider Fervo Energy has more than quadrupled the size of its headquarters.

Fervo previously occupied 5,158 square feet at 114 Main St. in downtown Houston. The company recently left the Main Street space and leased 23,782 square feet at downtown Houston’s 910 Louisiana office tower. Houston-based commercial real estate company Hines owns and manages the 50-story former One Shell Plaza.

“We believe Houston is the center of the energy transition, and downtown Houston has long been its center of activity,” Tim Latimer, co-founder and CEO of Fervo Energy, says in a news release. “The availability of dining options, parks, and biking infrastructure continue to be great assets and a huge draw for our team. For these reasons and more, the only place for Fervo’s headquarters is downtown Houston.”

In February 2024, Fervo announced it had raised $244 million in an investment round led by Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based hydrocarbon exploration company Devon Energy. Fervo has collected $431 million in funding since its founding in 2017.

Energy companies like Fervo occupy about 43 percent of office space in downtown Houston, according to a new report from the Downtown Houston+ organization. Nineteen new tenants set up shop last year in downtown Houston, with 10 of them operating in the energy sector.

Other energy companies that recently leased office space in downtown Houston include:

  • AES Clean Energy
  • Axip Energy Services
  • EnLink Midstream
  • MRC Global
  • Repsol Renewables
  • Stonepeak

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

Chevron expects all of its corporate functions to shift to Houston over the next five years. Photo via Getty Images

Following years of speculation, Chevron announces HQ move to Houston

big news

The Energy Capital of the World is adding another jewel to its corporate crown.

With the impending move of Chevron’s headquarters from Northern California to Houston, the Houston area will be home to 24 Fortune 500 companies. Chevron ranks 15th on this year’s Fortune 500.

Oil and gas giant Chevron, currently based in San Ramon, California, will join three Fortune 500 competitors that already maintain headquarters in the Houston area:

  • Spring-based ExxonMobil, No. 7 on the Fortune 500
  • Houston-based Phillips 66, No. 26 on the Fortune 500
  • Houston-based ConocoPhillips, No. 68 on the Fortune 500

Chevron, which posted revenue of $200.9 billion in 2023, employs about 7,000 people in the Houston area and about 2,000 people in San Ramon. The company says its chairman and CEO, Mike Wirth, and vice chairman, Mark Nelson, will move to Houston before the end of 2024.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Wirth acknowledged Chevron’s differences of opinion with California policymakers regarding energy matters.

“We believe California has a number of policies that raise costs, that hurt consumers, that discourage investment and ultimately we think that’s not good for the economy in California and for consumers,” Wirth said.

Chevron expects all of its corporate functions to shift to Houston over the next five years. Jobs that support the company’s California operations will remain in San Ramon, where Chevron employs about 2,000 people. Some Chevron employees in San Ramon will relocate to Houston.

The company’s move to Houston hardly comes as a surprise. Speculation about a relocation to Houston intensified after Chevron sold its 98-acre San Ramon headquarters in 2022 and moved corporate employees to leased office space. Over the past several years, Chevron has shifted various corporate functions to Houston.

“This is just the final step that many industry observers were waiting to happen,” Ken Medlock, senior director of the Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies at Rice University, says in a news release.

“To start, Houston provides a world-class location for internationally focused energy companies, which is why there is such a massive international presence here,” Medlock adds. “Texas is also the nation’s largest energy producer across multiple energy sources and is poised to lead in emerging opportunities such as hydrogen and carbon capture, so Houston is a great place for domestically focused activities as well.”

The announcement of Chevron’s exit from California comes just a year after ExxonMobil finalized its relocation from Irving to Spring.

“Chevron’s decision to relocate its headquarters underscores the compelling advantages that position Houston as the prime destination for leading energy companies today and for the future,” Steve Kean, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, says in a post on the organization’s website.

“With deep roots in our region,” he adds, “Chevron is [a] key player in establishing Houston as a global energy leader. This move will further enhance those efforts.”

Baker Hughes has officially moved into its new headquarters in Houston. Photo via bakerhughes.com

Baker Hughes unveils new HQ in Houston's Energy Corridor

moving in

Houston-based Baker Hughes officially opened the doors to its new headquarters in the Energy Corridor last week.

At a celebration held Oct. 23, the energy service company unveiled its new space within Energy Center II at 575 N. Dairy Ashford. The move represents a consolidation of Baker Hughes' various offices in the Houston-area as the company decreases its corporate footprint by about 346,000-square-feet, according to a report from the Houston Chronicle.

It is moving from its former headquarters in North Houston, near IAH. About 1,300 employees will work from the building, according to a statement from Baker Hughes.

“The opening of our new Houston headquarters is an important moment in our strategic transformation as we continue to take energy forward,” Lorenzo Simonelli, Baker Hughes chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “Collaboration will be key to solving for the energy transition. We look forward to collaborating with our colleagues, partners, customers and new neighbors in the Energy Corridor to solve the Energy Trilemma.”

Additionally, the company reported that the new space will aim to help the company reduce costs, cut emissions, create more flexible workspaces and strengthen relationships within the Energy Corridor.

The new HQ includes features such as

  • Tech- and food-free quiet zones
  • Hybrid experience rooms for enhanced online meetings
  • About 25 open collaboration spaces
  • About 40 meeting rooms, including hybrid meeting rooms and a creative thinking room
  • About 12 community spaces
  • Nursing mothers suites
  • Prayer and meditation rooms

In other HQ news, ExxonMobil officially changed its headquarters to Houston over the summer. A July 5 filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission showed a significant step toward the HQ move that Exxon originally announced in early 2022.

ExxonMobil is officially HQ-ed in Houston — according to a recent SEC filing. Photo via ExxonMobil.com

Breaking news: ExxonMobil's HQ officially changed to Houston

now in HOU

As of this month, ExxonMobil's headquarters is officially Houston, according to a recent filing.

ExxonMobil's company page on the United States Securities and Exchange Commission now lists its new Houston-area address — 22777 Springwoods Village Parkway in Spring. While the ExxonMobil's site still lists it's Irving, Texas, address, the SEC filing dated July 5 marks a significant step toward the HQ move that Exxon originally announced in early 2022.

In the initial announcement, the company disclosed that the move, which will combine its chemical and refining divisions, will be completed by 2023. ExxonMobil’s Spring office was opened by former CEO Rex Tillerson in 2014.

With the relocation announcement, ExxonMobil became Houston’s 25th Fortune 500 headquarters, the third highest concentration in the country, after New York and Chicago, per the Greater Houston Partnership. It's slated to be the largest Fortune 500 company to be headquartered in the Houston region, ranking No. 10 in the 2021 listing based on $181.5 billion revenues in 2020.

“ExxonMobil’s move further solidifies Houston’s position as the Energy Capital of the World," the Greater Houston Partnership noted in a January 31 statement. "ExxonMobil is a key participant in our Houston Energy Transition Initiative, and we look forward to working with the company as we continue to position Houston to lead the energy transition to a low-carbon future."

Since the announcement, ExxonMobil has grown its Houston presence by signing on as a founding partner at the Ion, a Midtown Houston 266,000-square-foot building developed and managed by Rice Management Company, last summer. The company joins existing Ion founding partners Aramco, Chevron Technology Ventures, Baker Botts, and Microsoft, as well as affiliate partners bp and Intel. The company joins the Ion "to help develop solutions for the world’s emerging energy issues," per the June 13 news release.

“ExxonMobil has been a leader in energy technology for over a century. Collaboration is essential to both augment our capabilities and accelerate the development of scalable solutions,” said Linda DuCharme, president of ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company, in the release. “Our partnership with The Ion will enable us to tap into the extraordinary talent in Houston.”

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Houston-area solar farm to light up Texas with clean power for 15,000 homes

switch flipped

A clean energy developer and operator of solar and energy storage assets has announced the completion and commercial operation of a Houston-area farm that will power 15,000 homes a year.

Recurrent Energy's Liberty Solar project outside of Houston has powered on and will expand solar energy capacity in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator market. Recurrent Energy is an Austin-based a subsidiary of Canadian Solar.

“Projects like Liberty Solar are instrumental to meeting the soaring demand for electricity in Texas,” Executive Director of Texas Solar Power Association Mark Stover says in a news release. "We commend Recurrent Energy for pushing through the development process and working with corporate buyers to deliver new, predictable, clean power to the MISO region of Texas.”

Liberty Solar is in Liberty County, which is about 50 miles northeast of Houston and will be a 134 megawatt solar project. Customers include Autodesk Inc., Biogen Inc., EMD Electronics (the U.S. and Canada electronics business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), and Wayfair Inc.

“Investment in additional renewable capacity on the grid is essential to delivering more sustainable outcomes, and we believe that the Liberty Solar project will help make renewable energy more accessible in North America,” Joe Speicher, chief sustainability officer at Autodesk, adds in tje release. “Autodesk is committed to 100% renewable energy sourcing for our facilities, cloud services and hybrid workforce, and we are committed to leveraging our climate commitments to drive transformational change in our energy generation and deployment.”

Recurrent Energy celebrated the project by welcoming customers at Liberty Solar on October 23 for a guided tour and ribbon cutting ceremony.

“Liberty Solar is a fantastic project that expands Recurrent Energy’s project ownership in MISO,” Ismael Guerrero, CEO of Recurrent Energy, says in the release. “We are thrilled to complete this project on time and on budget in support of the renewable energy goals of our customers.”

Last year, Recurrent Energy scored $200 million in financing for the project, including $120 million in financing through Rabobank, Nord LB, and U.S. Bank in the form of construction debt, a letter-of-credit facility, and a term facility. In addition, U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance, a subsidiary of U.S. Bank, is providing $80 million in tax equity.

Unlocking climate tech’s potential in Houston: What health innovation's rise can teach us

guest column

Over the past several decades, climate tech has faced numerous challenges, ranging from inconsistent public support to a lack of funding from cautious investors. While grassroots organizations and climate innovators have made notable efforts to address urgent environmental issues, we have yet to see large-scale, lasting impact.

A common tendency is to compare climate tech to the rapid advancements made in digital and software technology, but perhaps a more appropriate parallel is the health tech sector, which encountered many of the same struggles in its early days.

Observing the rise of health tech and the economic and political support it received, we can uncover strategies that could stabilize and propel climate tech forward.

Health tech's slow but steady rise

Health tech’s slow upward trajectory began in the mid-20th century, with World War II serving as a critical turning point for medical research and development. Scientists working on wartime projects recognized the broader benefits of increased research funding for the general public, and soon after, the Public Health Service Act of 1944 was passed. This landmark legislation directed resources toward eradicating widespread diseases, viewing them as a national economic threat. By acknowledging diseases as a danger to both public health and the economy, the government laid the groundwork for significant policy changes.

This serves as an essential lesson for climate tech: if the federal government were to officially recognize climate change as a direct threat to the nation’s economy and security, it could lead to similar shifts in policy and resource allocation.

The role of public advocacy and federal support

The growth of health tech wasn’t solely reliant on government intervention. Public advocacy played a key role in securing ongoing support. Voluntary health agencies, such as the American Cancer Society, lobbied for increased funding and spread awareness, helping to attract public interest and investment. But even with this advocacy, early health tech startups struggled to secure venture capital. VCs were hesitant to invest in areas they didn’t fully understand, and without sustained government funding and public backing, it’s unlikely that health tech would have grown as quickly as it has.

The lesson here for climate tech is clear: strong public advocacy and education are crucial. However, unlike health tech, climate tech faces a unique obstacle — there is still a significant portion of the population that either denies the existence of climate change or doesn’t view it as an immediate concern. This lack of urgency makes it difficult to galvanize the public and attract the necessary long-term investment.

Government support: A mixed bag

There have been legislative efforts to support climate tech, though they haven’t yet led to the explosive growth seen in health tech. For example, the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 and the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 gave universities and small businesses the rights to profit from their innovations, including climate-related research. More recently, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 has been instrumental in advancing climate tech by creating opportunities to build projects, lower household energy costs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite this federal support, many climate tech companies are still struggling to scale. A primary concern for investors is the longer time horizon required for climate startups to yield returns. Scalability is crucial — companies must demonstrate how they will grow profitably over time, but many climate tech startups lack practical long-term business models.

As climate investor Yao Huang put it, “At the end of the day, a climate tech company needs to demonstrate how it will make money. We can apply political pressure and implement governmental policies, but if it is not profitable, it won’t scale or create meaningful impact.”

The public’s role in scaling climate tech

Health tech’s success can largely be attributed to a combination of federal funding, public advocacy, and long-term investment from knowledgeable VCs. Climate tech has federal support in place, thanks to the IRA, but is still lacking the same level of public backing. Health tech overcame its hurdles when public awareness about the importance of medical advancements grew, and voluntary health agencies helped channel donations toward research and innovation.

In contrast, climate nonprofits like Cool Earth, Environmental Defense Fund, and Clean Air Task Force face a severe funding shortfall. A 2020 study revealed that climate nonprofits aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions only received $2 billion in donations, representing just 0.4% of all philanthropic funding. Without greater public awareness/sense of urgency and financial support, these groups cannot effectively advocate for climate tech startups or lobby for necessary policy changes. This type of philanthropic funding is also known as ‘catalytic capital’ or ‘impact-first-capital’. Prime Impact Fund is one such fund that does not ‘view investments as concessionary on return’. Rather their patient and flexible capital allows support of high risk, high-reward ventures.

A path forward for climate tech

The most valuable insight from health tech’s growth is that government intervention, while critical, is not enough to guarantee the success of an emerging sector. Climate tech needs a stronger support system, including informed investors, widespread public backing, and nonprofits with the financial resources to advocate for industry-wide growth.

If we can channel the same sense of urgency and public commitment toward climate change as we did for health crises in the past, climate tech could overcome its current obstacles.The future of climate tech depends not just on government policies, but on educating the public, rallying financial support, and building a robust infrastructure for long-term growth.

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Nada Ahmed is the founding partner at Houston-based Energy Tech Nexus, a startup hub for the energy transition.

Houston tech company's new partnership to drive affordable green hydrogen solutions for heavy industry

dream team

A Houston energy technology company has announced a new partnership with a green hydrogen technology provider.

Lummus Technology has teamed up with Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Advanced Ionics to accelerate the commercialization of its hydrogen electrolyzer technology. Lummus Venture Capital has also invested an undisclosed amount into the company's business.

“Lummus has a proven track record of serving as a launchpad for innovative technologies,” says Leon de Bruyn, president and CEO of Lummus Technology, in a news release. “With Advanced Ionics, we will leverage this experience to develop and deploy cost-efficient solutions that advance green hydrogen production and help decarbonize key sectors of the downstream energy industry.”

The platform that Advanced Ionics has created works with process and waste heat to produce green hydrogen for less than a dollar per kilogram, according to the company. The platform's users include industrial hydrogen producers looking to optimize sustainability at an affordable cost.

“Water vapor electrolyzers address two of the biggest challenges to expanding green hydrogen production: capital costs and electricity requirements,” adds Chad Mason, CEO of Advanced Ionics. “Our partnership with Lummus Technology – and their additional investment – marks a pivotal next step in accelerating the commercialization of technology, which was purpose-built for decarbonizing heavy industry.”

Lummus, a global licensor of hydrogen technology for refinery, petrochemical and other industrial gas applications, has also supported other energy transition verticals recently, including sustainable plastics alternatives and carbon capture.