The Houston Energy Transition Initiative has added six new members. Photo via htxenergytransition.org

The Greater Houston Partnership’s The Houston Energy Transition Initiative welcomes six new member companies including, one executive level and five investor level. HETI members are champions in their fields, each creating innovative solutions for a sustainable and low-carbon future. Our members are critical to continue to position our region to lead the global energy transition.

Executive Member

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is one of the world’s leading industrial groups, spanning energy, smart infrastructure, industrial machinery, aerospace, and defense. MHI Group combines cutting-edge technology with deep experience to deliver innovative, integrated solutions that help to realize a carbon neutral world, improve the quality of life and ensure a safer world.

Investor Level Members

Eni Next LLC is a corporate venture capital company, created to integrate corporate research, with open innovation, enhancing the value of dynamic and innovative start-ups through early-stage financing and successive capital increases. Eni Next evaluates and invests in companies developing technologies with a lower carbon footprint for energy production, improved efficiency for our industrial operations and digital solutions.

Honeywell International Inc. invents and commercializes technologies that address some of the world’s most critical challenges around energy, safety, security, air travel, productivity, and global urbanization. They are a leading software-industrial company committed to introducing state of the art technology solutions to improve efficiency, productivity, sustainability, and safety in high growth businesses in broad-based, attractive industrial end markets.

Natixis Investment Managers is a global asset management company. Ranked among the world’s largest asset managers, Natixis delivers a diverse range of solutions across asset classes, styles, and vehicles. The company is dedicated to advancing sustainable finance and developing innovative ESG products.

Stantec is a global design and delivery leader in sustainable engineering, architectural planning, and environmental services. Stantec’s multidisciplinary teams address climate change, urbanization, and infrastructure resiliency. The company is at the forefront of innovations to enhance environmental and social opportunities. The Stantec community unites more than 26,000 employees working in over 400 locations across six continents.

Vopak North America is an independent infrastructure provider with an unrivaled network of 78 terminals in 23 countries and 25+ joint venture partners, connecting the supply and demand for products that are essential to the economy and the daily lives of people around the world. Vopak takes pride in improving access to cleaner energy and feedstocks for a growing world population, ensuring safe, clean and efficient storage and handling of bulk liquid products and gases.

———

This article originally ran on the Greater Houston Partnership's Houston Energy Transition Initiative blog. HETI exists to support Houston's future as an energy leader. For more information about the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, EnergyCapitalHTX's presenting sponsor, visit htxenergytransition.org.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Profile: Former Shell VP helps create a new way of making clean electricity with Houston company

leading energy

When Cindy Taff was a vice president at the giant oil and gas company Shell in Houston, her middle schooler Brianna would sometimes look over her shoulder as she worked from home.

“Why are you still working in oil and gas?” her daughter asked more than once. “Is there a future in it? Why aren’t you moving into something clean?”

The words weighed on Taff.

“As a parent you want to give direction, and was I giving her the right direction?” she recalled.

At Shell, Taff was in charge of drilling wells and bringing them into production. She worked on oil and natural gas that's called unconventional in the industry, because the oil or natural gas is difficult to get out of the ground — it doesn't naturally gush out like in movies. It's a term often used for oily shale rock. Taff was somewhat unconventional for the industry, too. Her coworkers used to tease her for driving an efficient hybrid.

“You’re not helping oil and gas prices by driving a Prius," they'd say.

______

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of an occasional series of personal stories from the energy transition — the change away from a fossil-fuel based world that largely causes climate change.

______

Taff wanted Shell to pursue the energy that comes from the Earth's natural heat — geothermal. Her team looked into it, but Shell never greenlit any of those projects, saying it would take too much time to recoup the investment.

When Brianna went to college, she was passionate about energy too, but she wanted to work on renewables. After her sophomore year, in the summer of 2020, she got an internship at a geothermal company — one that in fact had just been launched by Taff's former colleagues at Shell — Sage Geosystems in Houston.

Now it was Taff looking over her daughter's shoulder and asking question as she worked from home during the pandemic.

And Sage executives were talking to Brianna, too. “We could use your mom here," they said. "Can you get her to come work for us?” Brianna recalled recently.

That's how Cindy Taff left her 36-year career at Shell to become chief operating officer at Sage.

“I didn't understand why Shell wasn't pursuing it,” she said about applying the company's drilling expertise to heat energy. "Then I got this great opportunity to pivot from oil and gas and work with these guys that I have the utmost respect for. And also, I wanted to make my daughter proud, quite frankly.”

Brianna Byrd, now 24, is the operations engineer and spokesperson at the company. She's glad her mother, now CEO, left oil and gas.

“Of course I’m biased, she’s my mom, but I don’t think Sage would be where it is without her,” she said.

The United States is a world leader in electricity made from geothermal energy, but this kind of electricity still accounts for less than half a percent of the nation’s total large-scale generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2023, most geothermal electricity came from California, Nevada, Utah, Hawaii, Oregon, Idaho and New Mexico, where there are reservoirs of steam, or very hot water, close to the surface.

The Energy Department estimates this next generation of geothermal projects, like what Sage is doing, could provide some 90 gigawatts by 2050 — enough to power 65 million homes or more. That hinges on private investment, and on companies like Sage introducing this form of energy to regions where, until now, it’s been thought to be impossible.

How it works

Sage has two main technologies: The first makes electricity out of heat. The company drills wells and fractures hot, dry rock. Then electric pumps push water into those fractures, heating it up, and the hot water gets jettisoned to the surface where it spins a turbine.

But a funny thing happened during testing in Starr County, Texas. In late 2021, the team realized much of their technology could also be used to store energy.

If that works, it could be a big deal. Currently, to store energy at large scale, the United States is adding batteries, mostly lithium-ion type, to solar and wind projects, so they can charge up and send electricity back to the electric grid when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. These batteries typically supply four hours maximum power.

Sage envisions some of its technology placed at solar and wind farms, too. When electricity demand is low, they'll use extra energy from a solar or wind farm to run electric pumps, pumping water into the underground fractures, leaving it there until demand for electricity increases — storing the energy beneath the Earth's surface for hours, days or even weeks.

It's a novel way to use the technology, said Silviu Livescu, lead author on a report looking at the future of geothermal in Texas. Livescu knows Taff and has followed the company's progress.

“It’s the right moment for companies like Sage with a purpose, with a mission and with the technology to show that geothermal indeed is the energy source we need to address climate change,” said Livescu, who co-founded a different geothermal startup in Austin, Texas.

These days, Taff is often out in front, talking with politicians and policymakers about the potential of geothermal. She attended the United Nations COP28 climate talks last year to share her vision for this kind of energy.

Sage has raised $30 million so far and is growing.

It's building a small (3-megawatt), geothermal energy storage system at San Miguel Electric Cooperative, Inc., south of San Antonio this year. It's working with U.S. military facilities in Texas that see geothermal as a way to power their bases securely. Sage recently announced partnerships for heating communities in Bucharest, Romania; clean electricity from geothermal for Meta's data centers, and energy storage and geothermal projects in California.

The company is final-testing a proprietary turbine to more efficiently convert heat to electricity.

Because of her oil and gas background, Taff said she knows geothermal will only be adopted widely if the cost comes down. The mantra at Sage is: It's going to be clean and it's going to be cheap. She's excited to be working in a field she feels is on the cusp of playing a big role in cleaning and stabilizing the electrical grid.

“I’ve never looked back,” she said. “I love what I’m doing and I think it’s going to be transformative.”

Things to know: Houston company raises $25M, events not to miss and more

taking notes

Editor's note: Dive headfirst into the new week with three quick things to catch up on in Houston's energy transition.

Events not to miss

Put these Houston-area energy-related events on your calendar.

  • Baker Botts and the Center for Energy Studies will co-host their eighth annual energy summit on October 1 and October 2. Some programing will be livestreamed.
  • The Center for Houston's Future's Future of Global Energy Conference will be held on October 9 at the Hilton Americas-Houston.
  • World Geothermal Energy Day will take place at Karbach Brewery on October 17.
  • Energy Day, Houston’s largest free family festival showcasing exhibits focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, will take place in downtown on October 19.

Big deal: Houston superconductor tech manufacturer raises $25M

The fresh funding will go toward advancing the company's Xeus HTS wire technology. Photo via metoxtech.com

A Houston company has closed its series B extension at $25 million.

MetOx International, which develops and manufactures high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wire, announced it closed a $25 million series B extension. Centaurus Capital, an energy-focused family office, and New System Ventures, a climate and energy transition-focused venture firm, led the round with participation from other investors.

"MetOx has developed a robust and highly scalable operation, and we are thrilled to partner with the Company as it enters this pivotal growth stage," says John Arnold, founder of Centaurus, in a news release. "The market for HTS is expanding at an unprecedented pace, with demand for HTS far outweighing supply. MetOx is poised to be the leading U.S. HTS producer, closing the supply gap and bringing dramatic capacity to high power innovations and applications. Their progress and potential are unmatched in the field, and we are proud to support their growth." Continue reading.

Expert opinion:HVAC innovation has a huge role to play in Houston amid energy transition

By prioritizing the deployment of smart, energy-efficient technologies, we can ensure that Houston remains at the forefront of the global energy landscape, setting the standard for other cities to follow. Photo via Getty Images

As Houston, the energy capital of the world, navigates the global energy transition, the city is uniquely positioned to lead by example. This transition isn’t just about shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy; it’s about creating an ecosystem where corporations, research institutions, startups, and investors collaborate to develop and implement innovative technologies.

One of the most promising areas for reducing energy consumption and minimizing environmental impact is in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, or HVAC, systems.

Houston’s intense weather patterns demand efficient and adaptable climate control solutions. Traditional HVAC systems, while effective in maintaining indoor comfort, often operate on fixed settings that don’t account for real-time changes in occupancy or weather. This results in energy waste and increased utility costs — issues that can be mitigated by integrating artificial intelligence into HVAC systems. Continue reading the article by Trevor Schick, president of KOVA.

Houston industrial decarbonization-focused PE firm scores $725M to launch new business unit

this just in

Houston-based Ara Partners, a private equity firm that focuses on industrial decarbonization investments, is receiving up to $725 million from a Tennessee-based family office to launch an energy decarbonization unit.

HF Capital, the Knoxville, Tennessee-based investment arm of the Haslam family, made the multimillion-dollar commitment to set up Ara Energy Decarbonization. The new business will work toward reducing carbon emissions at ethanol plants, natural gas power plants, and other traditional energy assets.

The Haslam family founded Pilot Co., North America’s largest transportation fuel business and chain of travel centers. Shameek Konar, former CEO of Pilot, has been tapped to lead Ara Energy Decarbonization.

“It is an uncomfortable truth that highly pollutive energy sources are going to play an essential role in delivering an energy transition over the next several decades,” Charles Cherington, co-founder and managing partner of Ara, says in a news release. “We can ignore these staggering carbon emissions, or we can apply our proven methods and financing expertise to decarbonize the conventional energy value chain.”

The energy sector accounts for more than 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“The world’s energy demands are increasing and complex, and renewable power needs time and support for it to fulfill rising global energy demand. Ara’s … skillset, portfolio network, and decarbonization management knowledge [are] perfectly positioned to attack the carbon-intensive energy sector,” Konar says.

Ara Partners closed its third private equity fund in December 2023 with over $2.8 billion in new commitments. As of June 30, 2024, Ara Partners had about $6.3 billion of assets under management.