Houston Airports to explore launching electric, autonomous air taxis

taking flight

The Houston Airport System announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Wisk Aero, a fully-owned subsidiary of Boeing. Photo via wisk.aero

A fleet of electric and autonomous air taxis is expected to take flight in Houston, thanks to a partnership between a California startup and the Houston Airport System.

HAS announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Wisk Aero, a fully-owned subsidiary of Boeing, which recently announced a similar partnership with the city of Sugar Land. For the next year, the company will identify vertiport infrastructure at Houston's three airports — George Bush Intercontinental Airport, William P. Hobby Airport, and Ellington Airport.

“During my time in the Texas senate, I voted for legislation supporting advanced air mobility. This public-private partnership marks a significant step forward for the City of Houston as we invest in innovative and sustainable modes of air transportation,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire says in a statement. “The collaboration underscores our commitment to pioneer advancements that will shape the future of urban mobility.”

Wisk will also develop Houston-area relationships and chart out flight paths for self-flying, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxis. The company's Generation 6 aircraft is autonomous, but a human supervisor remotely oversees every flight.

"Houston is at the forefront of aviation and aerospace innovation, so it’s only fitting that Houston Airports take the first steps to explore the next generation of air transportation,” says Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for Houston Airports. “Our partnership with Wisk represents a bold step towards revolutionizing air mobility not just within our city, but across the entire Greater Houston region."

Earlier this year, Wisk partnered in a similar capacity with Sugar Land. The company and HAS will also work with the Federal Aviation Administration on this initiative.

“Our partnership with Houston Airports solidifies Wisk’s commitment to creating new and efficient ways to travel within the Greater Houston area and furthers our relationship with infrastructure and regulatory partners in the region," adds Brian Yutko, CEO at Wisk. “Connecting suburbs to Houston’s airports, business centers and prime tourist destinations through autonomous, sustainable air travel will create a new form of urban mobility and have tremendous economic and workforce impacts, supporting the growth of the Houston region.”

In addition to early infrastructure planning for maintenance and training facilities in Houston, the partnership means Houston Airports and Wisk will collaborate on integrating AAM into HAS's long-term plans.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

The study will look at improving sustainability within George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. Photo courtesy of Airbus

Airbus, Houston organizations launch study to explore hydrogen-powered travel

ready for takeoff

A few major players have teamed up to look into making air travel more sustainable — and it's all happening in Houston.

The Center for Houston’s Future, Airbus, and Houston Airports have signed a memorandum of understanding intended to study the “feasibility of a hydrogen hub at George Bush Intercontinental Airport." The study, which will conclude in March of 2025, will include the participants that will collaborate ways to rethink how their infrastructures could be designed and operated to reduce an overall environmental footprint, and lead to hydrogen-powered aircrafts like the ones Airbus plans to bring to fruition by 2035.

In 2020, Airbus debuted its ZEROe hydrogen-powered aircraft project. The “Hydrogen Hub at Airports'' concept by Airbus unites key airport ecosystem players to develop ways to decarbonize all airport-associated infrastructure with hydrogen. The study will include airport ground transportation, airport heating, end-use in aviation, and possibly ways to supply adjacent customers in transport and local industries.

The use of hydrogen to power future aircraft aims to assist in eliminating aircraft CO2 emissions in the air, and also can help decarbonize air transport on the ground. With Houston being such a large city, and a destination for some many visiting on business, the Houston airports was an easy spot to assign the study.

"Houston’s airports are experiencing tremendous growth, connecting our city to the world like never before,” Jim Szczesniak, the aviation director for the city of Houston, says in a news release. “As we continue to expand and modernize our facilities, participating in this sustainability study is crucial. Continuing to build a sustainable airport system will ensure a healthy future for Houston, attract top talent and businesses, and demonstrate our commitment to being a responsible global citizen.

"This study will provide us with valuable insights to guide our development and position Houston as a global leader in sustainable aviation innovation for generations to come.”

The CHF was a founding organizer of the HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub, which was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of seven hydrogen hubs in the nation, and will work in the Houston area and the Gulf Coast. The HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub is eligible to receive up to $1.2 billion as part of a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to advance domestic hydrogen production.

“The Center for Houston’s Future is pleased to have played a crucial role in bringing together the partners for this study,” Brett Perlman, the center's outgoing CEO and president, adds. “With Houston’s role as the world’s energy capital, our record of energy innovation and desire to lead in the business of low-carbon energy, Houston is the perfect place to develop our airports as North American clean hydrogen pioneers.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

Houston's airports are looking more and more green. Photo via fly2houston.org

Houston airports land $12.5M for green projects, announce new EV fleet

seeing green

Houston Airports will receive funding from The Federal Aviation Administration in the next few months on projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and implementing the administration's climate challenge guidance at its hubs.

The funds — about $12.5 million — come from the FAA's FY2022 Airport Improvement Program Supplemental Discretionary Grant Competition and are slated to be rolled-out by September 2024. Projects at George Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports were among 79 projects around the country, which the FAA granted about $268 million to in total.

“Houston Airports is committed to reducing our environmental impact while also protecting the planet as we expand our global reach. These FAA grants fund our ability to invest in smart and sustainable solutions” Jim Szczesniak, COO for Houston Airports, said in a statement. “The end result of these projects will be a more resilient, efficient and sustainable airport system that aligns with the goal of Houston Airports to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.”

IAH received $10.3 million for two projects that will replace existing generators and fund an energy audit to find energy and water use efficiencies at the airport, as well as "define actionable steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the airfield and the airport's buildings," according to the statement.

Hobby received $2.1 million to also go towards an energy audit and to create a Resiliency Master Plan to help mitigate the impacts of climate change, severe weather and floods in a sustainable way.

Separate from the FAA funds, Houston airports also announced in recent weeks that it will add an all-electric fleet of vehicles for its six airport locations by the end of 2023.

According to a release from HAS, ground operations are a major source of the aviation industry's carbon footprint.

The fleet will include 25 Ford F-150 Lightnings, which can travel up to 320 miles on a full charge. HAS's maintenance team planned to install 11 Level 2 charging stations to support the fleet at its airports this summer.

These updates are all part of HAS's Sustainable Management Plan, which aims to get the system to carbon neutrality by 2030.

Earlier this year, Hertz Electrifies Houston, in partnership with bp pulse, announced that it would install a new EV fast-charging hub to Hobby Airport that's designed to serve ride-hail, taxi fleets and the general public. The initiative, which was formed by The Hertz Corp. and the City of Houston, also aimed to bring 2,100 rental electric vehicles to Houston.

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Fervo Energy officially files for initial public offering

going public

Fervo Energy has officially filed for IPO.

The Houston-based geothermal unicorn filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 17 to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq exchange. Fervo intends to be listed under the ticker symbol "FRVO."

The number and price of the shares have not yet been determined, according to a news release from Fervo. J.P. Morgan, BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets and Barclays are leading the offering.

The highly anticipated filing comes as Fervo readies its flagship Cape Station geothermal project to deliver its first power later this year

"Today, miles-long lines for gasoline have been replaced by lines for electricity. Tech companies compete for megawatts to claim AI market share. Manufacturers jockey for power to strengthen American industry. Utilities demand clean, firm electricity to stabilize the grid," Fervo CEO Tim Latimer shared in the filing. "Fervo is prepared to serve all of these customers. Not with complex, idiosyncratic projects but with a simplified, standardized product capable of delivering around-the-clock, carbon-free power using proven oil and gas technology."

Fervo has been preparing to file for IPO for months. Axios Pro first reported that the company "quietly" filed for an IPO in January and estimated it would be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion.

Fervo also closed $421 million in non-recourse debt financing for the first phase of Cape Station last month and raised a $462 million Series E in December. The company also announced the addition of four heavyweights to its board of directors last week, including Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, Hewlett-Packard, and Spring-based HPE.

Fervo reported a net loss of $70.5 million for the 2025 fiscal year in the S-1 filing and a loss of $41.1 million in 2024.

Tracxn.com estimates that Fervo has raised $1.12 billion over 12 funding rounds. The company was founded in 2017 by Latimer and CTO Jack Norbeck.

Houston lawmaker may kill data center tax breaks due to $8B revenue loss

looking at the data

An influential Houston-area state senator is raising concerns about potentially billions of dollars in lost state revenue from tax breaks for Texas data centers—and is pondering legislation that would abolish the tax incentives.

Citing data from the state comptroller’s office, The Texas Tribune reports the state stands to lose nearly $8 billion in revenue from 2026 to 2030 due to sales tax and use tax exemptions for data centers. During the state’s 2025 fiscal year, which ended on Aug. 31, these tax exemptions caused Texas to lose a little over $1 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $130 million.

“These new numbers are extremely concerning, and I will say they’re unsustainable,” Republican state Sen. Joan Huffman, chairwoman of the state Senate Finance Committee, tells The Texas Tribune. “I plan to look at filing legislation to either repeal the exemption or take a very close look at it and see.”

Texas on track to be No. 1 data center market in U.S.

Scrutiny of the tax breaks comes amid an explosion of data center development in Texas, where data provider Aterio identifies nearly 1,000 centers that are operating, under construction or planned.

A report issued in January by Bloom Energy says the state is poised to become the No. 1 U.S. market for data centers within three years. By 2028, according to the report, Texas is projected to exceed 40 gigawatts of data center capacity—representing nearly 30 percent of total U.S. demand.

Among companies benefiting from the data center boom are:

Tech titans like Apple, Google, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft, which are spending billions of dollars to build data centers in Texas.
Spring-based ExxonMobil and Houston-based Chevron, two oil and energy giants that are developing natural gas plants to supply power for data centers.
Houston-based energy technology company Baker Hughes, which is collaborating with Google Cloud to develop AI-enabled power optimization and sustainability software for data centers.
DataBank, Data Foundry, Equinix, Digital Realty, Lumen Technologies, and IBM, all of which operate data centers in the Houston area.

The Texas Legislature will begin debating tax breaks for data centers in July, when Huffman’s Senate Finance Committee meets for an interim hearing before the 2027 legislative session, according to the Tribune.

Data center industry defends tax breaks

Leaders in the data center industry warn that watering down or halting the tax breaks could slow down or even end Texas’ ascent in the data center sector.

A 2025 report commissioned by the Data Center Coalition found that in 2024, data centers provided more than $1.6 billion in state tax revenue and almost $1.6 billion in local tax revenue in Texas. Over the next several years, according to the report, planned development of data centers in the Lone Star State could generate almost $3.8 billion in state tax revenue and more than $4.9 billion in local tax revenue.

In 2024, the Houston area had 8.1 million gross square feet of data centers, with the properties’ real estate investments sitting at $10 billion, according to the report. That year, data centers in the region produced a little over $700 million in state and local tax revenue. About 60 data centers operate in the Houston area.

Watchdog group warns of tax breaks’ danger to state budgets

On the other side of the debate over tax breaks for data centers, a report released last year by Good Jobs First, a nonprofit, nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks economic development incentives, decries the tax breaks as dangerous to state budgets.

“We know of no other form of state spending that is so out of control. Therefore, we recommend that states cancel their data center tax exemptions,” says Good Jobs research analyst Kasia Tarczynska, co-author of the report. “Shy of that, states should amend … legislation to cap how much any facility and company can avoid paying in taxes each year.”

Helix Earth closes $12M round and more Houston energy headlines

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Editor's note: The top energy transition headlines for the month include Helix Earth's Seed 2 funding and Chevron's plans for a West Texas power plant. Below are the five most-read EnergyCapital stories published April 1-15, 2026:

1. Houston cleantech company closes $12M seed round

Helix Earth is developing a retrofit technology that has the potential to cut HVAC energy use by up to 50 percent. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based Helix Earth Technologies has closed a $12 million Seed 2 funding round to scale manufacturing of its energy-efficient commercial HVAC add-on technology. Veriten, a Houston-based energy investment firm, led the round. Rua Ventures, Carnrite Ventures, Skywriter LLC and Textbook Ventures also participated. Continue reading.

2. Chevron eyes $7B Texas power plant for Microsoft data center campus

Chevron is in talks with Microsoft and Engine No. 1 about a massive natural gas power plant in Texas. Photo via Getty Images

Software giant Microsoft is negotiating exclusively with Houston-based oil and gas titan Chevron and investment firm Engine No. 1 about the development of a $7 billion power plant in West Texas that would supply electricity for a Microsoft data center campus. Continue reading.

3. 3 strategies to strengthen the Gulf Coast as a global energy hub

The Gulf Coast is one of the most critical energy hubs in the world. Photo via Getty Images.

The Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast is the backbone of America’s energy and chemical economy. Texas produces roughly 43% of U.S. crude oil and 28% of natural gas, while Texas and Louisiana together account for about half of the nation’s refining capacity, processing 9.3 million barrels of crude per day across 50 refineries. The region also produces approximately 80% of the nation’s primary petrochemicals and ships more than $117 billion in chemical products annually from Texas alone. Continue reading.

4. 8 CERAWeek 2026 takeaways from a new Houston energy leader

Kelsey Kearns (right), the new director of Greentown Houston, shared her takeaways from her first-ever CERAWeek with Energy Capital HTX. Photo courtesy Greentown

My first CERAWeek was a blur. Having top energy executives, policymakers, and technologists all gathered in Houston—over 11,000 of them this year—was both overwhelming and energizing. The theme was “Convergence and Competition: Energy, Technology, and Geopolitics,” and walking through the George R. Brown Convention Center, it was immediately clear that this was no ordinary industry conference. As a first-timer with a Greentown Labs lens, here’s what really stuck with me. Continue reading.

5. Greentown Labs names new COO, appoints new Head of Houston

Lawson Gow and Kelsey Kearns have stepped into new leadership roles at Greentown Labs. Photos courtesy Greentown/LinkedIn

Greentown Labs has reshuffled its leadership, elevating Houston leaders into new roles. Lawson Gow was named COO of the Houston- and Boston-based climatech incubator in February 2026. In his new role, he will focus on optimizing Greentown's structure, building new internal and external systems and developing a plan for growth. Continue reading.

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