Houston geothermal entrepreneur gears up 100x business growth

Tim Latimer, CEO and co-founder of Fervo Energy, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to share his story as a reluctant entrepreneur who's headed toward 100x business growth. Photo courtesy of Fervo Energy

Geothermal energy has been growing in recognition as a major player in the clean energy mix, and while many might think of it as a new climatetech solution, Tim Latimer, co-founder and CEO of Fervo Energy, knows better.

"Every overnight success is a decade in the making, and I think Fervo, fortunately — and geothermal as a whole — has become much more high profile recently as people realize that it can be a tremendous solution to the challenges that our energy sector and climate are facing," he says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

In fact, Latimer has been bullish on geothermal as a clean energy source since he quit his job as a drilling engineer in oil and gas to pursue a dual degree program — MBA and master's in earth sciences — at Stanford University. He had decided that, with the reluctance of incumbent energy companies to try new technologies, he was going to figure out how to start his own company. Through the Stanford program and Activate, a nonprofit hardtech program that funded two years of Fervo's research and development, Latimer did just that.

And the bet has more than paid off. Since officially launching in 2017, Fervo Energy has raised over $430 million — most recently collecting a $244 million series D round. Even more impressive to Latimer — his idea for drilling horizontal wells works. The company celebrated a successful pilot program last summer by achieving continuous carbon-free geothermal energy production with Project Red, a northern Nevada site made possible through a 2021 partnership with Google.

Next up for Fervo is growing and scaling at around a 100x pace. While Project Red included three wells, Project Cape, a Southwest Utah site, will include around 100 wells with significantly reduced drilling cost and an estimated 2026 delivery. Latimer says there are a dozen other projects like Project Cape that are in the works.

"It's a huge ramp up in our drilling, construction, and powerplant programs from our pilot project, but we've already had tremendous success there," Latimer says of Project Cape. "We think our technology has a really bright future."

While Latimer looks ahead to the rapid growth of Fervo Energy, he says it's all due to the foundation he put in place for the company, which has a culture built on the motto, "Build things that last."

“You’re not going to get somewhere that really changes the world by cutting corners and taking short steps. And, if you want to move the needle on something as complicated as the global energy system that has been built up over hundreds of years with trillions of dollars of capital invested in it – you’re not going to do it overnight," he says on the show. "We’re all in this for the long haul together."

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Fervo Energy says its drilling operations Utah’s Cape Station show a 70 percent reduction in drilling times, paving the way for advancement of its geothermal energy system. Photo via fervoenergy.com

Houston geothermal startup reports 'dramatic acceleration' of drilling operations at Utah project

optimization station

Early drilling results indicate a geothermal energy project operated in Utah by Houston-based startup Fervo Energy is performing better than expected.

Fervo says its drilling operations Utah’s Cape Station show a 70 percent reduction in drilling times, paving the way for advancement of its geothermal energy system. Fervo began construction last year on Cape Station, which is set to deliver clean power to the grid in 2026 and be fully operating by 2028.

The company recently published early drilling results from Cape Station that it says exceed the U.S. Department of Energy’s expectations for enhanced geothermal systems. Fervo says these results “substantiate the rapid learning underway in the geothermal industry and signal readiness for continued commercialization.”

Founded in 2017, Fervo provides carbon-free energy through development of next-generation geothermal power.

Fervo began drilling at Cape Station, a 400-megawatt project in southwest Utah, in June 2023. Over the past six months, the company has drilled one vertical well and six horizontal wells there. The company reports that costs for the first four horizontal wells at Cape Station fell from $9.4 million to $4.8 million per well.

“Since its inception, Fervo has looked to bring a manufacturing mentality to enhanced geothermal development, building a highly repeatable drilling process that allows for continuous improvement and, as a result, lower costs,” Tim Latimer, Fervo’s co-founder and CEO, says in a news release. “In just six months, we have proven that our technology solutions have led to a dramatic acceleration in forecasted drilling performance.”

Trey Lowe, chief technology officer of Oklahoma City-based oil and gas producer Devon Energy, likens Fervo’s drilling results to “the early days of the shale revolution.” Last year, Devon invested $10 million in Fervo.

“When you operate continually and understand the resource, you dramatically streamline operations. That’s the unique value of Fervo’s approach to enhanced geothermal,” says Lowe.

Last summer, Fervo reported the results of another one of its projects, Project Red, which is in northern Nevada and made possible through a 2021 partnership with Google. That site officially went online for the tech company in December.

Fervo Energy's Project Red with Google is officially operational. Photo via blog.google

Houston geothermal company's Google facility in Nevada goes online

up and running

Google is on a mission to run all of its data centers and office campuses on constant carbon-free energy by 2030, and the tech giant is one step closer to that goal.

Last week, Google announced that its 24/7 carbon-free energy, or CFE, in Nevada to power its local data center in the state is officially operational. The facility is powered by Houston-based Fervo Energy's geothermal technology, a project — called Project Red — that began in 2021 and celebrated its successful pilot this summer.

"When we began our partnership with Fervo, we knew that a first-of-a-kind project like this would require a wide range of technical and operational innovations," Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google, writes in a blog post about the partnership.

Fervo relies on tried and true drilling techniques from the oil and gas industry, accessing heat energy that previously has been elusive to traditional geothermal methods, Terrell continues. Fervo dug two horizontal wells at the Nevada plant, as well as installed fiber-optic cables to capture data that tracks performance and other key information.

"The result is a geothermal plant that can produce round-the-clock CFE using less land than other clean energy sources and drawing on skills, knowledge, and supply chains that exist in other industries," Terrell says. "From our early commitment to support the project’s development to its successful completion, we’ve worked closely with Fervo to overcome obstacles and prove that this technology can work."

Google also recently announced a partnership with Project InnerSpace, a nonprofit focused on global geothermal energy development.

Fervo is working on another nearby project, the company announced in September. The 400-milliwatt geothermal energy project in Cape Station, Utah, will start delivering carbon-free power to the grid in 2026, with full-scale production beginning in 2028.

The project, in southwest Utah, is about 240 miles southwest of Salt Lake City and about 240 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Cape Station is adjacent to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) and near the Blundell geothermal power plant.

Houston-based Fervo Energy shared the results of its commercial pilot project with Google. Photo via Getty Images

Houston geothermal energy company announces major milestone

the results are in

A Houston energy startup has announced the news that every early-stage company wants to get to shout from the rooftops: the technology works.

Fervo Energy announced this week that its commercial pilot project has resulted in continuous carbon-free geothermal energy production. The full-scale commercial pilot, Project Red, is in northern Nevada and made possible through a 2021 partnership with Google.

“By applying drilling technology from the oil and gas industry, we have proven that we can produce 24/7 carbon-free energy resources in new geographies across the world," Tim Latimer, Fervo Energy CEO and co-founder, says in a news release. "The incredible results we share today are the product of many years of dedicated work and commitment from Fervo employees and industry partners, especially Google."

The goal of the partnership is to power Google’s Cloud region in Las Vegas with Fervo's geothermal-generated power.

“Achieving our goal of operating on 24/7 carbon-free energy will require new sources of firm, clean power to complement variable renewables like wind and solar,” adds Michael Terrell, senior director for energy and climate at Google. “We partnered with Fervo in 2021 because we see significant potential for their geothermal technology to unlock a critical source of 24/7 carbon-free energy at scale, and we are thrilled to see Fervo reach this important technical milestone.”

In honor of the announcement, today — July 19 — is the inaugural Fervo Energy Technology Day.

Fervo’s unique horizontal drilling technology has made an unprecedented accomplishment with Project Red, which has also proven the reliability and capacity of geothermal energy to supply over 20 percent of country's power needs, the company explains in its news release.

“Power systems modeling confirms that geothermal can be a critical player in a fully decarbonized grid," says Jesse Jenkins, assistant professor and leader of the Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization lab at Princeton University, in the release. "Fervo’s successful commercial pilot takes next-generation geothermal technology from the realm of models into the real world and starts us on a path to unlock geothermal’s full potential.”

Fervo has started work on its first greenfield development in southwest Utah, which is adjacent to the U.S. Department of Energy's Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE).

Last year, Fervo raised $138 million to further develop its technology. The series C round was led by California-based investment firm DCVC, with participation from six new investors. In April, Fervo Energy secured the $10 million strategic investment from Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE: DVN). The deal created a partnership between the two entities.

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Houston energy-focused AI platform raises $5M in Mercury-led seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based Collide, a provider of generative artificial intelligence for the energy sector, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Houston’s Mercury Fund.

Other investors in the seed round include Bryan Sheffield, founder of Austin-based Parsley Energy, which was acquired by Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources in 2021; Billy Quinn, founder and managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm Pearl Energy Investments; and David Albin, co-founder and former managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm NGP Capital Partners.

“(Collide) co-founders Collin McLelland and Chuck Yates bring a unique understanding of the oil and gas industry,” Blair Garrou, managing partner at Mercury, said in a news release. “Their backgrounds, combined with Collide’s proprietary knowledge base, create a significant and strategic moat for the platform.”

Collide, founded in 2022, says the funding will enable the company to accelerate the development of its GenAI platform. GenAI creates digital content such as images, videos, text, and music.

Originally launched by Houston media organization Digital Wildcatters as “a professional network and digital community for technical discussions and knowledge sharing,” the company says it will now shift its focus to rolling out its enterprise-level, AI-enabled solution.

Collide explains that its platform gathers and synthesizes data from trusted sources to deliver industry insights for oil and gas professionals. Unlike platforms such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, Collide’s platform “uniquely accesses a comprehensive, industry-specific knowledge base, including technical papers, internal processes, and a curated Q&A database tailored to energy professionals,” the company said.

Collide says its approximately 6,000 platform users span 122 countries.

CenterPoint reports progress on grid improvements ahead of 2025 hurricane season

grid resilience

As part of an ongoing process to make Houston better prepared for climate disasters, CenterPoint Energy announced its latest progress update on the second phase of the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative (GHRI).

CenterPoint reported that it has completed 70 percent of its resiliency work and all GHRI-related actions are expected to be complete before the official start of the 2025 hurricane season.

"Our entire CenterPoint Houston Electric team is focused on completing this historic suite of grid resiliency actions before the start of hurricane season,” Darin Carroll, Senior Vice President of CenterPoint's Electric Business, said in a news release. “That is our goal, and we will achieve it. To date, we have made significant progress as part of this historic effort.”

CenterPoint’s resiliency solutions include clearing higher-risk vegetation across thousands of miles of power lines, adding thousands more automation devices capable of self-healing, installing thousands of storm-resistant poles, and undergrounding hundreds of miles of power lines.

CenterPoint's GHRI efforts, which entered a second phase in September 2024, aim to improve overall grid resiliency and reliability and are estimated to reduce outages for customers by more than 125 million minutes annually, according to the company. It has undergrounded nearly 350 miles of power lines, about 85 percent of the way toward its target of 400 miles, which will help improve resiliency and reduce the risk of outages. CenterPoint also aims to install the first of 100 new local weather monitoring stations by June 1.

In March, CenterPoint cleared 655 miles of high-risk vegetation near power lines, installed 1,215 automated reliability devices capable of self-healing, and added an additional 3,300 storm-resilient poles.

In April, CenterPoint will begin building a network of 100 new weather monitoring stations, which will provide 24/7 weather monitoring and storm response preparation.

“We will continue to work every day to complete these critical improvements as part of our company's goal of building the most resilient coastal grid in the country,” Carroll added in the release.

ExxonMobil, Rice launch sustainability initiative with first project underway

power partners

Houston-based ExxonMobil and Rice University announced a master research agreement this week to collaborate on research initiatives on sustainable energy efforts and solutions. The agreement includes one project that’s underway and more that are expected to launch this year.

“Our commitment to science and engineering, combined with Rice’s exceptional resources for research and innovation, will drive solutions to help meet growing energy demand,” Mike Zamora, president of ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Co., said in a news release. “We’re thrilled to work together with Rice.”

Rice and Exxon will aim to develop “systematic and comprehensive solutions” to support the global energy transition, according to Rice. The university will pull from the university’s prowess in materials science, polymers and catalysts, high-performance computing and applied mathematics.

“Our agreement with ExxonMobil highlights Rice’s ability to bring together diverse expertise to create lasting solutions,” Ramamoorthy Ramesh, executive vice president for research at Rice, said in the release. “This collaboration allows us to tackle key challenges in energy, water and resource sustainability by harnessing the power of an interdisciplinary systems approach.”

The first research project under the agreement focuses on developing advanced technologies to treat desalinated produced water from oil and gas operations for potential reuse. It's being led by Qilin Li, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice and co-director of the Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center.

Li’s research employs electrochemical advanced oxidation processes to remove harmful organic compounds and ammonia-nitrogen, aiming to make the water safe for applications such as agriculture, wildlife and industrial processes. Additionally, the project explores recovering ammonia and producing hydrogen, contributing to sustainable resource management.

Additional projects under the agreement with Exxon are set to launch in the coming months and years, according to Rice.

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