The overlaps between geothermal energy and the oil and gas sector expanded this week after Houston-based Fervo Energy selected Baker Hughes to deliver five power plants capable of generating about 300 MW combined.
Announced on 3 September, the contract is to see Baker Hughes engineer and manufacture “Fervo-exclusive” organic Rankine cycle (ORC) power plant technology for phase II of the Cape Station development near Milford, Utah.
The facilities are expected to start up in 2028 and supply enough electricity to power roughly 180,000 US homes. Fervo has already inked deals to sell power to Southern California Edison and Shell Energy.
“Baker Hughes’ expertise and technology are ideal complements to the ongoing progress at Cape Station, which has been under construction and successfully meeting project milestones for almost 2 years,” Tim Latimer, CEO and cofounder of Fervo, said in a statement.
Most conventional geothermal power is produced with steam turbines, but lower-temperature resources such as those at Cape Station require ORC technology to generate electricity effectively. Also, unlike conventional geothermal, Fervo is pioneering what are called enhanced geothermal (EGS) wells which involve drilling pairs of horizontal wells into deep, hot rocks to create subsurface heat exchangers.
In June, Fervo reported that independent assessments suggest the subsurface beneath the Cape Station project area may support up to 5 GW of output from EGS wells drilled as deep as 13,000 ft.
The company also drilled an appraisal well in the project area earlier this year that logged bottomhole temperatures of 520°F, well above the 300°F recorded during its first field trials in 2020. The EGS well was drilled in just 16 days of actual drilling time, nearly 80% faster than the US Department of Energy’s baseline expectation for such deep geothermal wells. Fervo said the results show the site is primed for “large-scale commercial deployment.”
The award to Houston-based Baker Hughes follows Fervo’s 2024 contract with Mitsubishi subsidiary Turboden for 100 MW of ORC capacity under phase I, scheduled to begin producing power in 2026.
Baker Hughes has previously supplied Fervo with drilling and production equipment, and the new deal extends that relationship into the company’s industrial energy technology business unit.
“By working with a leader like Fervo Energy and leveraging our comprehensive portfolio of technology solutions, we are supporting the scaling of lower-carbon power solutions that are integral to meet growing global energy demand,” Lorenzo Simonelli, Baker Hughes CEO, said in a statement.
