Sage Geosystems, a Houston-based geothermal energy startup, has been tapped to build a new facility to power data centers operated by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, the companies announced Monday.
While a specific location has not been identified, the project would be the first use of next-generation geothermal power east of the Rocky Mountains, according to the companies’ announcement. Sage Geosystems aims to have 8 megawatts operational by 2027 and scale up to 150 megawatts of power generation 36 to 48 months after that, Cindy Taff, its CEO, said in an interview.
The deal comes as technology giants like Meta try to square competing priorities: rapidly adding data centers the large power demands of which could boost the long-term use of fossil fuels as they race to advance artificial intelligence, while at the same time pursuing decarbonization commitments.
The project may not pair with an existing Meta data center, nor connect directly to one, Urvi Parekh, Meta’s head of renewable energy, said.
Rather, the two companies are working to identify the most cost-effective place for Sage Geosystems to scale up its project, which would connect directly to the chosen region’s power grid, she said. Meta would take power from the grid and subsidize the geothermal facility with a power purchase agreement, the value of which Taff and Parekh declined to disclose.
As for the companies’ commitment to locating the project east of the Rockies, Parekh said Meta wanted to use the partnership as an opportunity to deploy next-generation geothermal in areas that haven’t yet seen its benefits.
“We wanted to ensure that we could push the boundaries of where it could be applied,” Parekh said.
Geothermal energy leverages heat under the earth’s surface to produce power that is not only carbon-free but also available around-the-clock, supplementing renewable energy resources such as solar and wind that are dependent on weather conditions. Though geothermal has been in use for decades, it has previously been limited to regions with existing underground hot rock, fluids and fractures such as California.
Fracking technologies adapted from the oil and gas industry, however, have revolutionized the sector in recent years by allowing companies – many based in Houston – to inject fluids into fractures they also create. This has exponentially expanded potential sites for geothermal energy production.
Thus far, no geothermal energy projects contribute to the isolated Texas power grid, though Sage Geosystems has plans to bring online a geothermal energy storage project in the San Antonio area by 2025.
Another Houston-based geothermal startup, Fervo Energy, partnered with Google to build a 3.5-megawatt geothermal project that came online last year to power the technology company’s data centers in Nevada. The startup has another deal with Google to build a 115-megawatt geothermal project also in Nevada.
Source: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/meta-sage-geosystems-geothermal-power-19723308.php
