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$135 million Houston battery storage facility breaks ground

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SMT Energy, CenterPoint and Irby Construction have broken ground on a 160-megawatt battery energy storage system in ERCOT's Houston zone. Photo via Getty Images

SMT Energy and CenterPoint Energy have partnered with utility infrastructure solutions provider Irby Construction Company to break ground on a 160 megawatt battery energy storage system (BESS) located in the Houston zone of the ERCOT market.

“We are proud to be underway and deliver this grid-strengthening project to Houston,” Kevin Midei, SVP of engineering, procurement and construction, at SMT Energy, said in a news release.

The BESS, SMT Houston IV, is expected to support grid stability, deliver fast-response power during peak demands and provide resiliency and renewable integration. The project is expected to be online by 2026 and store and dispatch enough electricity to power 8,800 homes in Texas annually.

SMT Energy is the project owner and developer, and CenterPoint Energy will serve as the interconnecting utility, integrating the system into Houston’s broader electrical network,” according to the companies. Irby Construction will serve as the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor, and construction of the project is expected to be completed by July. On May 14, the companies broke ground with a ribbon-cutting ceremony to symbolize the start of the build.

“Projects like this demonstrate how collaboration and forward-thinking infrastructure come together to power a more resilient energy future,” Tony Gardner, SVP and chief customer officer at CenterPoint, said in a news release. “At CenterPoint, we recently completed nearly 90 percent of our overall grid resiliency improvements. This is one more action we are taking to build a more resilient and reliable grid to better serve our customers.”

In March, Colorado-based SMT Energy secured $135 million in funding for the SMT Houston IV, led by Macquarie and KeyBanc Capital Markets as joint lead arrangers. In 2023, SMT Energy and joint venture partner SUSI Partners announced plans to add 10 battery storage projects to Texas, which would double capacity from 100 megawatts to 200 megawatts in the Houston and Dallas areas.

In 2019, Irby began construction on the Manatee BESS site with Florida Power and Light (FPL), which was the world’s largest BESS project at the time. Irby has built over 30 BESS sites and has more than 20 currently under construction or contract.

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China-based Trina Storage is starting its U.S. expansion in Houston. Photo via trinasolar.com

China-based company to launch its largest U.S. energy storage project in Houston

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Trina Storage and FlexGen, a North Carolina-based company that develops integrated energy storage systems, are bringing a 371-megawatt battery energy storage system to Houston. The project will be the largest grid-scale deployment project in North America by Trina Storage, which is a business unit of China-based Trina Solar.

"This project is a testament to Trina Storage's ability to provide a fully bankable, integrated energy storage solution that meets the evolving needs of the market," Terry Chen, vice president of Trina Storage North America, said in a news release. "As our first grid-scale deployment in North America, this achievement reflects the industry's confidence in our technology and our commitment to de-risking energy storage investments and supporting the energy transition in the region."

The project, developed by Boulder, Colorado-based SMT Energy, will utilize Trina Storage's advanced Elementa 2 battery storage system, which is designed to optimize energy performance and reliability. The system uses Trinas proprietary lithium iron phosphate cells that are more than 95 percent energy efficient, according to the company.

FlexGen will provide system integration and use its HybridOS energy management software. The HybridOS allows site operators to manage systems, detect issues faster and predict maintenance needs.

"This collaboration with Trina Storage and SMT Energy represents another major step in accelerating the deployment of flexible energy storage assets to meet growing demand," Diane Giacomozzi, COO at FlexGen, added in the release. "By pre-integrating FlexGen HybridOS with Trina's Elementa 2 energy storage solution in our Durham Innovation Lab, we're enabling faster project delivery and optimized performance from the first moment of operation."

Trina Storage currently has 10 energy storage facilities in China and two in the UK. The Houston facility is part of its plans to expand across the U.S., according to a LinkedIn post form the company.

SMT Energy is expected to bring a new battery storage facility online next year to support the ERCOT grid. Photo via Getty Images

$135 million in funding secured for new Houston battery storage facility

battery expansion

Boulder, Colorado-based SMT Energy has secured $135 million in funding for a 160-megawatt battery energy storage facility, dubbed SMT Houston IV, according to an announcement.

The new facility will work to support the ERCOT grid by providing access to stored energy. The project is expected to be online by 2026 and store and dispatch enough electricity to power 8,800 homes in Texas annually.

Macquarie and KeyBanc Capital Markets were joint lead arrangers in a $100 million project financing facility. Macquarie's Commodities and Global Markets business will also provide a preferred equity investment and are mandated to sell the project's investment tax credits of approximately $62 million, according to SMT. KeyBanc will also act as a financial advisor to SMT.

North Carolina-based battery energy storage integrator FlexGen Power Systems will obtain equipment for the project. The project will also use FlexGen's energy management system software. The software provides site integration, site control and advanced analytics insights to maximize the availability and operating ranges of battery energy storage assets.

"FlexGen is proud to partner with SMT Energy on the deployment of the SMT Houston IV project, which will deliver critical services to the dynamic ERCOT power grid," Jason Abiecunas, Executive Vice President of Business Development with FlexGen said in the release.

In 2023, SMT Energy and joint venture partner SUSI Partners announced plans to add 10 battery storage projects to Texas, doubling capacity from 100 megawatts to 200 megawatts in the Houston and Dallas areas. SMT has a 2 gigawatt per hour pipeline of battery energy storage projects in ERCOT and Southwest Power Pool targeted for commercial operation by 2030, according to the release.

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Fervo Energy officially files for initial public offering

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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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