Investor acquires majority stake in Houston energy storage, CCS co.

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Caliche says Sixth Street’s backing will enable it to expand its Golden Storage Triangle complex. Photo via calichestorage.com

Investment firm Sixth Street has purchased a majority stake in Houston-based Caliche Development Partners, which focuses on buying, developing, and operating natural gas and gas storage facilities along with carbon sequestration projects.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

The deal includes Caliche’s Golden Triangle Storage facilities and carbon sequestration project in Beaumont, and its Central Valley Gas Storage facilities in Princeton, California.

Caliche says Sixth Street’s backing will enable it to expand its Golden Storage Triangle complex, including the addition of two natural gas caverns.

Caliche’s leadership will continue to oversee day-to-day operations and remain investors in the company. All employees in Caliche’s Texas and California offices and at its facilities are staying aboard.

“We continue to meet the growing demand for the storage of natural gas and industrial gasses, including helium and hydrogen, and provide the infrastructure for lower environmental impact forms of energy through our commitment to safety, deliverability, [and] asset integrity,” Dave Marchese, CEO of Caliche, says in a news release.

Richard Sberlati, a partner at Sixth Street, which has an office in Houston, says Caliche’s success “comes from a combined 65 years of collective storage experience, and we look forward to partnering with the company’s management as they further grow the business.”

Sixth Street’s acquisition of Caliche’s Texas business operations is expected to close in late 2024, and its acquisition of the California business operations is set to close in mid-2025.

Founded in 2016, Caliche announced in 2020 that it had arranged a $150 million debt facility with Houston-based investment firm Orion Infrastructure Capital. Two years later, Caliche gained $268 million in funding from Orion and Chicago-based asset management firm GCM Grosvenor.

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U.S. Congressman Jake Ellzey made the announcement in Dallas last week. Photo courtesy of Google

Google to invest $1B in clean energy, data center tech in Texas

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Google is making a big investment in Texas to the tune of $1 billion.

According to a news release from the company, the tech giant will spend more than $1 billion to support its cloud and data center infrastructure and expand its commitment to clean energy.

The $1 billion will be spent on data center campuses in Midlothian and Red Oak to help meet growing demand for Google Cloud, AI innovations, and other digital products and services such as Search, Maps, and Workspace.

In addition to its data center investment, Google has also forged long-term power purchase agreements with Houston-based Engie, as well as Madrid-based entities Elawan, Grupo Cobra, and X-ELIO for solar energy based in Texas. Together, these new agreements are expected to provide 375 MW of carbon-free energy capacity, which will help support Google’s operations in Texas.

These agreements were facilitated through LEAP (LevelTen Energy’s Accelerated Process), which was co-developed by Google and LevelTen Energy to make sourcing and executing clean energy PPAs more efficient, and contributes to the company’s ambitious 2030 goal to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy on every grid where it operates.

The company has contracted with energy partners to bring more than 2,800 megawatts (MW) of new wind and solar projects to the state. Google’s CFE percentage in the ERCOT grid region, which powers its Texas data centers, nearly doubled from 41 percent in 2022 to 79 percent in 2023.

The initiatives were announced at a conference in Midlothian on August 15, attended by business leaders and politicians including U.S. Congressman Jake Ellzey, Google Cloud VP Yolande Piazza, Ted Cruz, and Citi CIO Shadman Zafar.

The Dallas cloud region is part of Google Cloud's global network of 40 regions that delivers services to large enterprises, startups, and public sector organizations.

In a statement, Piazza said that "expanding our cloud and data center infrastructure in Midlothian and Red Oak reflects our confidence in the state's ability to lead in the digital economy."

Data centers are the engines behind the growing digital economy. Google has helped train more than 1 million residents in digital skills through partnerships with 590 local organizations, including public libraries, chambers of commerce, and community colleges.

In addition to its cloud region and Midlothian data center, Google has offices in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. The new Google’s total investment in Texas to more than $2.7 billion.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Local energy innovators recognized at annual Houston Innovation Awards

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This week, the Houston innovation ecosystem celebrated big wins from the year, and members of the energy transition community were recognized alongside other innovators.

The Houston Innovation Awards honored over 40 finalists across categories, naming the 12 winners and honoring the two Trailblazer Legacy Awards at the event. The event, hosted at TMC Helix Park on November 14 named and celebrated the winners, which included four energy transition innovators.

Here's what energy leaders secured wins during the evening.

Corrolytics is a technology startup founded to solve microbiologically influenced corrosion problems for industrial assets. Co-founder and CEO Anwar Sadek says he's collected over $1 million in dilutive and non-dilutive funding from grants and other opportunities thanks to help from mentors. The company won both the Minority-Founded Business category and the People's Choice: Startup of the Year category.

"As a founder, I am always eager to assist and support fellow entrepreneurs, especially those navigating the unique challenges that come with being a BIPOC founder," he says. "With the guidance of mentors, I learned to master the complexities of the application process for grants and other funding opportunities. In turn, I actively share my experiences with other founders, helping them navigate similar paths."

Founded by CEO Cindy Taff, Sage Geosystems is an energy company focused on developing and deploying advanced geothermal technologies to provide reliable power and sustainable energy storage solutions regardless of geography. The company secured the win in the Energy Transition Business category, alongside finalists Amperon, ARIX Technologies, Elementium Materials, InnoVent Renewables, and Tierra Climate.

"Sage Geosystems sets itself apart from competitors with its Geopressured Geothermal Systems, which can be deployed almost anywhere, unlike traditional geothermal technologies that require specific geographic conditions," Taff says. "This flexibility enables Sage to provide a reliable and virtually limitless power supply, making it ideal for energy-intensive applications like data centers."

A finalist in both the Investor of the Year and Ecosystem Builder categories, Juliana Garaizar is the founding partner of Energy Tech Nexus, invests with groups — such as Portfolia, Houston Angel Network, Business Angel Minority Association, and more — locally and beyond.

"I'm a hands on investor," she says. "I offer mentorship and industry and other investor connections. I take advisory roles and board observer seats."

This year, the Houston innovation community suffered the loss of two business leaders who left a significant impact on the ecosystem. Both individuals' careers were recognized with Trailblazer Legacy Awards.

One of the recipients was Scott Gale, executive director of Halliburton Labs, who received the award posthumously. He died on September 24. The award was decided on by the 2024 judges and InnovationMap. Gale was honored alongside Paul Frison, founder of the Houston Technology Center.

“I am immensely proud to honor these two remarkable individuals with the Trailblazer Award this year. It is fitting, as they represent two generations of building Houston’s ecosystem," 2023 Trailblazer Award recipient Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance and the associate vice president for industry and new ventures within Rice University's Office of Innovation, tells InnovationMap.

"Paul Frison was a pioneering leader who helped establish the Houston Technology Center and fostered the city’s tech ecosystem during the initial technology boom around the year 2000. Scott Gale, through his work at Halliburton Labs over the past five years, has been instrumental in launching Houston’s energy transition ecosystem," he continues. "Both have played pivotal roles in championing technology innovators.”

In honor of his son, Andrew Gale accepted the award with his daughter-in-law, Nicole, during the event.

Pipeline robotics: How this Houston startup is revolutionizing corrosion monitoring

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After working for years in the downstream energy industry where safety and efficiency were top priorities, Dianna Liu thought there was a way technology could make a huge difference.

Despite loving her company and her job, she took a leap of faith to start a robotics company to create technology to more safely and efficiently monitor corrosion in pipelines. ARIX Technologies has developed software and hardware solutions for its customers with pipelines in downstream and beyond.

"Overall, this industry is an industry that really harps on doing things safely, doing things well, and having all the data to make really informed decisions," Liu says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "Because these are huge companies with huge problems, it takes a lot of time to set up the right systems, adopt new things, and make changes."

But it's an industry Liu knows well, so she founded ARIX in 2017 and created a team of engineers to create the first iteration of the ARIX robot, which was at first made of wood, she says. Now, years later, the much-evolved robot moves up and down the exterior of the pipe, using its technology to scan the interior to evaluate corrosion. The technology works with ARIX's software to provide key data analysis.

With customers across the country and the world, ARIX has a strong foothold in downstream, but has garnered interest from other verticals as well — even working with NASA at one point, Liu says.

"Staying in downstream would be nice and safe for us, but we've been very lucky and have had customers in midstream, upstream, and even outside oil and gas and chemicals," she says. "We've gotten inquiries ranging from cosmetics plants to water or wastewater — essentially anything that's round or a pipe that can corrode, we can help with."

Liu, who goes into detail on the show about how critical establishing a positive company culture has been for ARIX, shares a bit about what it's been like growing her company in Houston.

"Houston being the Energy Capital of the World opens a lot of doors to both customers, investors, and employees in a way that's unparalleled. It is a great place to build a company because of that — you have all this expertise in this city and the surrounding areas that's hard to find elsewhere," she says. "Being such a hub — not only for energy, but in terms transportation — means it's easy for us to get to our customers from around the world."

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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