Fervo Energy Q1 2026 Earnings Call - IPO Capital and Geothermal Scale Accelerate
Summary
Fervo Energy’s Q1 2026 earnings call highlighted the company’s successful $2.2 billion IPO and its aggressive push to scale enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) technology. The company reported $7.2 billion in contracted revenue from binding power purchase agreements, including a landmark 3 GW framework agreement with Google, signaling strong demand for firm, carbon-free power from data centers and utilities. Cape Station, the company’s flagship project in Utah, is on track for first power in Q4 2026, with Phase Two construction already underway. Management emphasized its modular GeoBlock design, which aims to drive down costs through repeatability and economies of scale.
The call also underscored Fervo’s strategic partnerships and technological advancements. A $421.4 million non-recourse project debt financing for Cape Phase One demonstrated the bankability of EGS projects. The company announced collaborations with Turboden, ABB, and Vallourec to secure supply chain stability, and a new digital twin initiative with NVIDIA and the Department of Energy to accelerate learning curves and de-risk subsurface operations. Despite a Q1 operating loss of $20.1 million, driven by pre-IPO and construction costs, Fervo’s cash position of $280.8 million and substantial IPO proceeds provide a robust runway to execute its pipeline, which exceeds 42 GW of evaluated potential across the western United States.
Key Takeaways
- Fervo Energy raised approximately $2.2 billion in gross proceeds from its Nasdaq IPO in May 2026, pricing above the revised range and issuing 26% more shares than initially targeted, marking one of the largest climate tech IPOs in history.
- The company reported $7.2 billion in contracted revenue from binding power purchase agreements, anchored by a landmark 3 GW framework agreement with Google, highlighting strong corporate demand for 24/7 clean firm power.
- Cape Station Phase One, a 100 MW installation in Utah, achieved mechanical completion at its first GeoBlock in Q1 2026, with first power targeted for Q4 2026. Phase Two construction, a 400 MW expansion, commenced in Q1 with active drilling and equipment erection.
- Fervo secured $421.4 million in non-recourse project debt financing for Cape Station Phase One in March 2026, establishing a replicable project finance structure that de-risks future EGS developments and lowers the cost of capital.
- The company’s development pipeline exceeds 42 GW of evaluated potential, with 500 MW under construction at Cape Station, 550 MW ready-to-build, and 2.6 GW in advanced development across Utah and Nevada, supported by a 610,000-acre land position.
- Fervo announced strategic supply chain partnerships to secure long-term equipment and services, including a three-year framework with Turboden for up to 35 ORC turbines, a five-year agreement with Vallourec for tubular components, and advanced electrification solutions from ABB.
- Management highlighted a new AI-driven digital twin initiative in partnership with NVIDIA and the Department of Energy to process terabytes of subsurface data, accelerate learning curves, and de-risk future projects through predictive modeling.
- Fervo’s modular GeoBlock design, standardized 50 MW units, enables parallel work streams and economies of scale, with Cape Phase Two introducing upsized 7,500-foot laterals and 8.5-inch casing to boost output per well while maintaining fast drilling performance.
- The company addressed a recent well control incident at Cape Station, noting it was contained within days with no injuries or environmental impact, and emphasized that geothermal operations lack the hydrocarbon-related risks of oil and gas, leading to lower inherent risks.
- Fervo’s Q1 2026 operating loss was $20.1 million, with capital expenditures of $172.8 million directed primarily at Cape Station construction and drilling. The company holds $280.8 million in cash and plans to deploy IPO proceeds to accelerate commercial projects, invest in high-return R&D, and position for post-2030 growth.
Full Transcript
Conference Call Operator: Thanks. Welcome to Fervo Energy’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the prepared remarks. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It’s now my pleasure to introduce your host, Paxton Bensinger, Senior Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Paxton Bensinger, Senior Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations, Fervo Energy: Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Fervo Energy’s Q1 2026 earnings call. Joining us today are Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, and David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that today’s discussion will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements reflect management’s current expectations and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to the forward-looking statements and risk factors disclosed in today’s earnings release and in our filings with the SEC. Additionally, today’s discussion may include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation tables are provided in the appendix of the earnings release as applicable. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Tim.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Thank you, Paxton, and good morning, everyone. This marks Fervo Energy’s first-ever quarterly earnings call. I want to begin by recognizing what a significant milestone our recent IPO represents. In May, we raised approximately $2.2 billion in gross proceeds after upsizing the offering and pricing above the high end of the revised range, a testament to the growing role of enhanced geothermal systems in the energy sector. We understand this was one of the largest primary energy and power IPOs of all time, as well as one of the largest climate tech IPOs ever. This is something that everyone at Fervo and all who supported us along the way should be proud of. I want to thank everyone for their dedication and hard work in getting us here.
Fervo Energy was founded on the conviction that the drilling technologies that catalyzed the shale revolution do the same for geothermal energy, unlocking clean, always-on power at enormous scale. Over the past decade, we’ve grown from a concept into a company with more than $7 billion in contracted revenue, dozens of wells drilled, billions of dollars of capital raised, and the startup of our first utility-scale project, Cape Station, now within sight. Ringing the Nasdaq bell marked an important milestone on our journey. Our mission to transform how the world obtains its energy is just beginning. We look forward to sharing our progress on that mission today and on future calls. Before diving in, I want to stress that safety is paramount at Fervo. In order to build things that last, it is imperative that we prioritize health, safety, and the environment first.
This has been a core value of Fervo from our founding days. We are exceptionally proud that we’ve proven that a company can push the boundary of innovation while simultaneously being an industry leader in HSE. We have implemented many proactive measures, such as our life-saving rules and take-time talks that have led to exceptional safety outcomes. As of Q1, our trailing 12-month total recordable injury rate for TRIR stood at just 0.27. This TRIR demonstrates Fervo’s commitment to industry-leading safety standards. This commitment to operational excellence is what gives us the confidence to pursue the exciting market opportunity ahead. Let me turn to that now. The energy landscape has fundamentally shifted. Surging power demand is exceeding firm supply, driven by AI, industrial reshoring, and rapid electrification.
The result is a growing clean firm capacity gap that utilities and large load customers are urgently working to address. According to projections from Rystad Energy, by 2035, the U.S. is expected to face a 98-gigawatt accredited capacity shortfall. At Fervo, we have a purpose-built solution to meet this moment. We believe our always-on carbon-free power is uniquely positioned to serve utilities, corporate buyers, and data center customers who need reliable baseload capacity at scale. EGS is a domestic, reliable, and cost-competitive resource, attracting ever more political support. Just last month, governors from four Mountain West states, crossing party lines, launched a coordinated consortium to facilitate up to 200 gigawatts of geothermal development through streamlined permitting, shared geologic data, and accessible project-level finance. More recently, the U.S. House approved the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act, a bipartisan package of bills to accelerate the deployment of geothermal energy with broad support.
That bipartisan momentum reinforces our confidence in the long-term runway ahead. Drilling further into our business model and how we are differentiated. Fervo is an independent power producer that builds, owns, and operates next-generation geothermal power plants using enhanced geothermal systems technology. Our EGS technology enables an innovative development approach centered on three differentiators: repeatability, enhanced production performance, and economies of scale. First, we have streamlined our core well field and power plant design to unlock learning curves and meaningfully reduce cost over time. We then harness these learnings to continuously improve our design, increasing production output and efficiency. Finally, going forward, by deploying our technology in modular 50-megawatt units called GeoBlocks and aggregating those into multi-gigawatt GeoClusters, we can achieve economies of scale tailor-made to meet customer demands. This is not one-off custom engineering.
It is a repeatable manufacturing process that we believe will accelerate project deployment and allow us to reinvest our cash flows into a deep pipeline designed to take full advantage of compounding efficiencies. We are able to accomplish this because we have fundamentally reimagined how to harness geothermal energy. Traditional geothermal is constrained to niche geologies with limited resource potential. Our approach sidesteps these constraints using the hallmarks of the shale revolution, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. With these tools, we believe geothermal can be developed virtually anywhere with orders of magnitude higher projected energy output. Our air-cooled, closed-loop power generation system recovers and reuses fluid continuously, aimed to drastically reduce water consumption and carbon emissions historically associated with flash geothermal plants. We believe this gives us a level of thermal consistency and predictability that conventional geothermal has never achieved.
We control thousands of design variables, including well spacing, lateral length, temperature, stimulation design, and completion architecture, allowing us to tailor our approach to a wide range of geologies, all underpinned by a robust and defensible intellectual property portfolio. Let’s now turn to Cape Station, our flagship GeoCluster. Located in southwest Utah, Cape Station represents one of the world’s largest EGS power projects under active construction. We are currently building 500 MW, though the site has 4.3 GW of potential capacity. Cape Station Phase One is an approximately 100-MW installation comprising three 33-MW GeoBlocks. All initial Phase One wells have been drilled, stimulated, and completed, meaning our initial subsurface program for Phase One is done. In the first quarter of 2026, we achieved mechanical completion at our first GeoBlock. This last quarter, we conducted our largest zipper operation to date, simultaneously stimulating six wells on the Frisco pad.
The successful completion of the Frisco pad marks highlights in efficiency metrics such as stages per day and cost per foot, where we have seen continuous improvement throughout Cape Phase One. Key power facility equipment has been installed and commissioning is underway. We remain on track for first power in Q4 2026, with GeoBlocks 2 and 3 expected to follow in Q1 2027. Cape Station Phase Two is a 400-MW expansion comprising eight 50-MW GeoBlocks, which represents our go-forward design. I am pleased to report that Phase Two construction commenced in the first quarter. Two Helmerich & Payne rigs are actively drilling. All four initial Fervo Generation 3.0 wells, our new upsized 7,500-foot lateral design, have been drilled on the Kings pad and are ready for completion.
Erection of power generation facilities has already begun, with structural steel being assembled to support air-cooled condenser units for the GeoBlock 4, the first GeoBlock in the Cape Phase Two program. The pace of this progress reflects the speed to power that our GeoBlock model enables. By standardizing the design and sequencing of each unit, we can run multiple work streams in parallel in a way that bespoke, one-of-a-kind projects simply cannot. Our active projects expand beyond Cape Station. Last year, we drilled an appraisal well at Project Blanford, a new greenfield site in Utah. The results confirmed resource temperatures exceeding 555 degrees Fahrenheit at approximately 11,200 feet, the hottest well in company history, drilled in under 11 days. This well validates that Fervo is on the forefront of pushing to even higher temperature geothermal, unlocking greater power plant efficiency over time.
An independent assessment completed by DeGolyer and MacNaughton, a leading engineering consulting firm, confirmed 10.8 GW resource potential at the Blanford site. Lastly, a successful fracture injection test validated our ability to stimulate the target formation. Blanford represents another exciting opportunity in our growing portfolio, and we look forward to sharing more as the project evolves. Let me now turn to our commercial position. Fervo has 658 MW of binding power purchase agreements, representing $7.2 billion of contracted revenue. Geothermal’s value proposition, firm, carbon-free, reliable power, resonates across major buyer categories in the power market. Our counterparties today include regulated utilities, community choice aggregators, energy majors, and hyperscalers. Google, in particular, has become a core customer. We first partnered with them more than five years ago to develop our 3-MW commercial pilot, Project Red, which has been operational in Nevada since late 2023.
We continued to expand our partnership with Google through the Clean Transition Tariff, a novel offtake agreement covering 115 megawatts of our portfolio in Nevada. In the first quarter of 2026, we significantly expanded that relationship through a geothermal framework agreement, or GFA, which is structured as a scalable commercial framework rather than a single PPA. We believe this is one of the most significant commercial relationships in the history of geothermal. For hyperscalers like Google, reliable 24/7 clean power is a strategic imperative. AI and data center workloads require around-the-clock power that intermittent resources cannot provide. Fervo is uniquely positioned to deliver that capacity at scale, placing geothermal at the heart of next-generation digital infrastructure. Executing on this kind of commercial momentum requires a supply chain that can scale with us.
To support our accelerated development, we strengthened our supply chain through strategic partnerships with three key suppliers in Q1. First, we entered into a turbine supply agreement with Turboden, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and one of the world’s leading Organic Rankine Cycle turbine manufacturers. This is a three-year framework for ORC units, the power conversion equipment at the heart of each GeoBlock. Turboden is contracted to supply up to 35 units or 1,750 megawatts of total power capacity. Firm delivery timelines enable predictable project execution and help eliminate equipment availability as a construction constraint. This agreement builds on our existing turbine supply agreements with both Turboden and Baker Hughes, who together are delivering 11 total ORC units for Cape Station Phases 1 and 2. Second, we finalized a strategic agreement with ABB to supply advanced motor control and electrification solutions for Cape Station.
Third, we executed a five-year supply agreement with Vallourec, providing critical tubular components needed for our substantial drilling campaigns, with products manufactured and tested in the U.S. This largely domestic subsurface supply chain sets Fervo apart from other clean firm power developers more exposed to shipping tariffs and longer procurement timelines. More broadly, all of these agreements reflect the increasing scale of geothermal development, moving the industry from one-off projects toward repeatable, predictable deployment. With these anchor partnerships, Fervo has secured better pricing, better delivery terms, and supply chain partners invested in our long-term success. With operations covered, I’ll now hand the call to David to walk through our financial highlights.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Thanks, Tim. I’m also excited to be here today, speaking for the first time on a Fervo earnings call. I’ll start with a brief overview of our financial highlights from the first quarter of 2026 before discussing our financing activities and then turning to our pipeline. We generated an operating loss of $20.1 million in Q1 2026. The majority of the costs on our P&L today are from G&A expenses and operating leases, which totaled $17 million and $2.6 million during the period, respectively. Net loss in Q1 2026 was $31.8 million. Operating cash flow in Q1 2026 was negative $9 million, starting with the net loss figure I just referenced and adding back non-cash P&L items totaling $21 million, primarily reflecting $13.1 million in non-cash expense related to warrant valuation and $1.8 million in cash generated from change in working capital.
Capital expenditures in Q1 2026 were $172.8 million, reflecting the intensive construction activity underway at Cape Station as we advanced both Phase 1 commissioning and Phase 2 groundbreaking simultaneously. We project total capital expenditures of approximately $1.2 billion through Q1 2027. The majority of the CapEx is going to the drilling and completion of wells and continued construction at Cape Station. Also includes some CapEx associated with early development activities at other GeoClusters. Breaking this down, approximately $1.1 billion of the CapEx relates to Cape Station, and approximately $70 million is allocated to early and advanced development activities across our portfolio, including permitting, engineering, site development, and resource characterization. These figures are broadly consistent with our expectations as disclosed in our Form S-1. Cash and cash equivalents as of March 31st, 2026, were $280.8 million, and long-term debt stood at $186.6 million.
As a reminder, these figures reflect our pre-IPO position. May 13th, we listed on Nasdaq. I echo Tim’s sentiments on the significance of this milestone. It is a true testament to the vision, rigor, and determination of everyone at Fervo, the world-class partners, advisors, and investors that have supported us. The broad need for Fervo’s scalable firm power across the market. In the aggregate, we issued 80.5 million shares of Class A common stock at $27 per share, generating total gross proceeds of approximately $2.2 billion. This included the full exercise of the underwriter’s 30-day option. The strength of investor demand was evident throughout the process. We launched our roadshow with initial price range of $21 to $24, revised the range upward to $25 to $26. Priced above that revised range while issuing 26% more shares than anticipated at roadshow launch.
Let’s talk about what that upsized IPO means for Fervo going forward. When we launched the roadshow, our goal was to use the IPO proceeds to fund the majority of our growth pipeline through the end of 2030, targeting 1 gigawatt of installed capacity. We raised significantly more than we estimated is required for that, creating an excellent opportunity to expand or accelerate our strategic priorities. We are not announcing any firm revised targets today. However, we plan to evaluate the strategic deployment of this incremental capital across three focus areas. One, commercial opportunities through 2030. Should we accelerate any projects in our commercial pipeline? Two, high return research and development. Are there opportunities to invest in high return, innovative technologies that could help accelerate our learning curves and help us achieve our installed CapEx target of $3,000 per kilowatt more quickly?
Three, opportunities in 2030 and beyond. Where might there be opportunities today to better position Fervo, our team, and our pipeline for growth after 2030? Underpinning all three of these focus areas is a fundamental shift. Being a public company changes what Fervo can do and how fast we can do it. Access to the public markets broadens and diversifies our capital base, giving us greater flexibility to capitalize on surging clean firm power demand. Equally important is what this listing signals to the market. Customers, partners, and suppliers are making long-term commitments when they work with us. The transparency, governance, and accountability that came with being a public company strengthen the confidence they place in Fervo as a counterparty. We’re already seeing that play out in our commercial relationships, and we expect it to continue as we execute on our growth plans.
Before moving forward, I want to circle back to another significant milestone that took place in the first quarter. In March, Fervo closed $421.4 million of non-recourse project debt for Cape Station Phase 1, an achievement whose significance goes beyond a single financing event. A few points worth underscoring. First, this debt is secured solely by Cape Station’s assets and cash flows. Second, by funding construction through project finance rather than corporate equity, we preserve our capital for pipeline development and future growth, the financial architecture of a scaled, mature IPP. Third, the fundraise establishes a proven, replicable project finance structure for all future GeoBlock projects. With a commercial precedent, lender familiarity, and documentation framework now in place. Finally, top-tier global financial institutions underwrote a first-of-its-kind EGS project, disrupting the long-held assumption that non-recourse financing is unavailable for first-of-a-kind projects.
In effect, we believe Fervo has helped transition EGS into a new era of bankability and unlocked a structurally lower cost of capital much earlier in our growth journey than many in our industry assumed possible. It’s a testament to our team’s ability to demonstrate why Fervo’s EGS projects are predictable, reliable, and financeable, but also to a tremendous set of lending partners that have come on the journey with us and were willing to invest the time necessary to understand our technology approach. Looking ahead, as we think about funding our growth, we have a range of tools available to us. Project finance debt, which we have now demonstrated at Cape Station, targets approximately 70% loan-to-value per asset. We can also bring in infrastructure equity at the project level, which would allow us to accelerate deployment with accretive capital while retaining ownership and operational control.
Any such arrangement would be structured thoughtfully and used to advance a real commercial opportunity, whether that is a construction commitment, an offtake agreement, or a combination of both. Now let me elaborate on Tim’s comments around our pipeline and commercial backlog, because this is where you can see the full scale of what Fervo is building. As mentioned earlier, Fervo has secured 658 MW of binding power purchase agreements, representing a cumulative revenue backlog of $7.2 billion as of the end of Q1 2026. Additionally, during the quarter, we entered into a 3 GW framework agreement with Google. This commercial foundation underpins everything I’m about to describe regarding our total resource portfolio. Our development pipeline is organized across 3 categories of maturity: mature, pipeline, and prospects.
The mature category includes 500 MW under construction at Cape Station and 550 MW of ready-to-build across our Cape Station and Corsac GeoClusters in Utah and Nevada, respectively. These commercial opportunities are backed by a combination of contracts with creditworthy offtakers, secured permits, interconnection at capacity, and validated subsurface models. Put simply, they define our most de-risked near-term growth opportunities. Our pipeline category includes an additional 2.6 GW in advanced development across several GeoClusters in Utah and Nevada. In early development, we’ve secured land rights across 10 GeoClusters and commissioned an independent expert, MacNaughton, to conduct heat-in-place studies reflecting over 38 GW of capacity potential.
You should think about the 40-plus gigawatts in advanced and early development as the locations where we have begun development activities, permitting work, and resource characterization, and the 2.6 gigawatts in advanced development as those projects that we’ll be evaluating for movement into ready-to-build in the future. Finally, our prospects category extends further still, with approximately 270,000 acres secured across the western United States. This total represents acreage we have leased and considered developable, but have not yet studied in detail with our independent engineering partners. All told, as of Q1 2026, we had an acreage position of approximately 610,000 net acres across seven states, with a total evaluated pipeline that exceeds 42 gigawatts. Operator, you may now open up to Q&A.
Conference Call Operator: As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question at this time, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. In the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Our first question comes from Mark Strouse with J.P. Morgan.
Mark Strouse, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for taking our questions, and welcome to the public markets. Can I start maybe just with your drilling cost? You mentioned the four initial wells on Cape 2, as well as the observation well at Blanford. Are you able to quantify what that looks like on a drilling cost per foot, how that compares to Cape 1 maybe, and how you’re thinking about achieving your medium to longer term targets with bringing that down closer to $3,000 overall project costs? Thank you.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, fantastic. Thanks, Mark, for the question and the welcome to the public markets. We appreciate it. Yeah, we’re really excited about the Cape Phase 2 results. We’re not going to disclose a dollar per foot metric on a individual well basis, and these are just the first handful of wells for Cape Phase 2, so we definitely want the data. We want to get more data points before we start disclosing what that means on a dollar per foot basis. I could tell you that we are meeting or exceeding our performance when we look at things like days of drilling and other key factors. We had successful technology trials on Cape Phase 2 that has helped us unlock these deeper and hotter wells, things like rotary steerable systems and otherwise that we’re very excited about.
I also think this is a good opportunity to talk about the different well design for Cape Phase Two wells, because it’s not just a cost per well or a cost per foot metric that matters. As you know, we are targeting larger casing size. These are our 8 and 5/8-inch casing as opposed to the 7-inch casing on Cape Phase One, which accommodates significantly more flow, as well as the longer laterals of 7,500 feet and significantly higher temperature approaching 430 degrees Fahrenheit. While cost per foot is important and we continue to see that move in the direction we want to, what matters for us, for that overall $ per kilowatt target of $3,000 is the cost per kilowatt.
That’s what’s exciting for us is not only are we hitting this really great performance on a drilling day standpoint, but we’re doing so on wells that will produce substantively more megawatts per well because of the higher temperature, the longer lateral, and upsized casing design. I think that’s the real
Excitement here is we’ve proven that we can go to a step change different well design that will produce significantly more power output per well and still have this incredibly fast drilling performance that far exceeds industry benchmarks before Fervo existed, and we continue to push to ever more extreme drilling designs with this kind of performance.
Mark Strouse, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Okay, great. Thanks, Tim. Just as a follow-up, on the other side of that coin, can you talk about what you’re seeing with future pricing? We’re continuing to observe rising pricing for other forms of power generation. Clearly, geothermal can get a premium because you are clean, you are baseload power. Just curious, can you, as we look further out this decade, to the extent that you are having conversations with folks now, just what you’re seeing with pricing trends. Thank you very much.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, it’s a great question, Mark, I’d say that everything that we’re seeing in the market is really constructive. We’re really pleased that the projects that we have in our pipeline today are already economic, both at our cost and our revenue profile. We’re certainly seeing a little bit of upward movement there, and in particular, pricing around projects that can come online in the 2030 or slightly before range have a really attractive profile for customers. I would say that, yes, we’re seeing constructive pricing movement in the market. Wouldn’t say that it’s materially different than what we’ve disclosed previously in our filings, which is a range for a product like ours falling in the range of $100-$130 per megawatt hour.
Certainly, all the conversations that we’re having, we think are going to lead to really, really nice economics around our project pipeline in the future.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Dendrinos with RBC Capital Markets.
Chris Dendrinos, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Yeah, good morning, thanks for taking the question. Maybe just to build a bit here on Mark’s question. For future PPA agreements and off-takers, at this point, what are they looking for from you all to sign up? Is the customer base wanting to see, I guess, results from Cape Phase One? Or do you think you can all sign folks up before performance history is established there? Thanks.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, appreciate the question, Chris. I think the answer’s pretty clear that our potential customers that we’re negotiating with commercially are not waiting for any further milestones. I think in David’s opening remarks, I think he covered well our project finance debt that we closed against Cape Phase One, which as I’m sure you could imagine, was sort of exhaustively reviewed in order to unlock that kind of non-recourse project debt. Given the operating history of Project Red and the maturity and key milestones that have been achieved on Cape Phase One, including the production test and independent engineering assessments, no one is really hedging future PPAs off of further demonstration milestones. I think all of our customers view the technology to be mature and sufficiently demonstrated.
To be frank, I mean, to echo some of David’s comments about the amount of inbound customer demand we have, anyone that wants to wait around for other project results is going to find themselves in a very disadvantaged position on procuring future Fervo power because we have a huge set of customers who are certainly not waiting for any other additional milestones on top of what we’ve already demonstrated from a maturity standpoint.
Chris Dendrinos, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Got it. Thank you. Maybe just as a follow-up to that, as you look out to Cape Phase Three, I guess, if that project were to go behind the meter with the customer, is that part of an opportunity to pull that forward somewhat? Or how do we think about the commentary around accelerating activity, just given the capital raise here and the project frameworks that you’ve all laid out so far? Thanks.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, I think it’s a fantastic question. I can answer probably more broadly about how we think about behind the meter, is that it is an unlock for faster project development. That would be true of future project phases at Cape as well as other places in our pipeline. The whole reason to prefer to pursue behind the meter is it is an accelerator over our base case plan.
I think you’re thinking about it in the right way, that subsequent behind the meter projects would be done because it unlocks faster development that goes beyond what the interconnection queue position could support, and that’s what we find appealing about it, and I can guarantee you that’s what our customers find appealing about it as well as speed to power continues to be the thing that dominates the procurement narrative.
Chris Dendrinos, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Thank you.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Derek Podhaizer with Piper Sandler.
Derek Podhaizer, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Hey, good morning, guys. Just wanted to start off asking about the news out this morning with your results with NVIDIA, the EGS-Twin. Can you talk to us about what that’s actually going to look like, and then how that’ll help drive down the cost curve and increase time to power? Just found that very interesting, so maybe a little color on that would be helpful.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Absolutely. We’ve been really pleased to be able to announce this partnership that’s with the Department of Energy, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, as well as NVIDIA, to form the EGS-Twin Project. As you know, we’ve made intentional efforts at building a standardized and modularized power plant design called the GeoBlock. I think the key for this is that because it’s standardized and modularized, it allows us to get on a learning curve that has historically eluded the geothermal industry, where projects were more bespoke. The correct way to actually accelerate those learnings is making sure that you’re using the data from past projects to rapidly and continuously improve future projects. The challenge with geothermal historically has been that a lot of the action happens 10,000 feet or deeper below your feet, where it’s very difficult to sense and measure and monitor what is occurring.
Tightening that feedback loop so you come down the learning curve faster involves processing that data, figuring out how it integrates with your power plant optimization and moving more quickly. Historically, Fervo has invested an enormous amount of money in collecting information from logging, seismic studies, distributed fiber optic sensing, and otherwise. We now have terabytes upon terabytes of data across Project Red and Project Cape that drive this performance.
What we’re seeing is a huge opportunity to accelerate this through new AI workflows, and particularly resources like what PNNL has with their exascale computing, where we can actually take those terabytes and terabytes of data and build out a digital twin model that allows us to test and calibrate to actually how do you paint the full picture of when we ran a trial or drilled a new geology or changed the well spacing a little bit, what does that actually mean and how does that tie to the production performance? Our ability to work with partners like NVIDIA and PNNL to build out a digital twin, use things like the Omniverse libraries to bring computing resources to this problem that are novel and historically have never been applied to geothermal will only accelerate our ability to move faster.
I think the other benefit of this is not just in driving down the cost per kilowatt, but of course a better understanding of subsurface resources and the subsurface risks that are validated with key digital twin models, de-risk the projects, not only in our eyes, but in the eyes of potential project financiers as well. What we want to do is build something here that allows us to come down the learning curve faster by understanding our data better and driving that into future project performance, but also provide higher fidelity models that highlight the risks and performance ranges of projects that we believe will unlock a lower cost of capital and financing for our projects as well.
There’s enormous benefits to working with partners like PNNL and NVIDIA to drive a more holistic understanding of what the terabytes of data that we have mean from a performance standpoint.
Derek Podhaizer, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Great. That’s very helpful. Maybe just switching over to Blanford, obviously very encouraging results with the observation well. Maybe can you help all of us understand some of the project milestones when we think about bringing Blanford towards that COD date or whenever you expect that to be? This is a huge resource for you guys. I think it’s the biggest one in your portfolio at 11 gigawatts. Maybe just help us understand how we could think about those timelines as you continue to develop Blanford.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, it’s a great question. Obviously given the exciting results in terms of temperature at depth there, it quickly has jumped in terms of our pipeline, in terms of our priorities, because the temperature and depth that we observed at that resource is truly world-class. As we noted, is actually significantly hotter than Project Cape at similar temperatures. There’s an enormous amount of geologic upside here. I think how we develop Project Cape is probably instructive. The next step for us usually is to move from drilling a vertical appraisal well to actually drilling our first set of horizontal wells and beginning production testing. We are not discussing the timeline for that right now, but we’re actively in the planning process for that.
As you mentioned, given the results of our appraisal, this could be a huge resource for us, which is meaning it’s attractive to not just us, but to our customers, and we’re pursuing really advanced commercial talks around all kinds of commercial structures that would be front of the meter and behind the meter for this. I think the next steps you can see from us are going to be announcing further commercial traction on this project, which we’re very excited about, as well as moving into the well testing and cross-flow testing and site construction phase, which we would plan to update you all on later this year.
Derek Podhaizer, Analyst, Piper Sandler: Great. Well, I really appreciate the comments, and congrats on your first set of results. I’ll turn it back.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Thank you.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from David Anderson with Barclays.
David Anderson, Analyst, Barclays: Hi, good morning. You mentioned all the supply agreements that you’ve got lined up here. I just had a question on the cost inflation component of that and wondering how you’re talking or thinking about addressing some of that. You mentioned the Vallourec agreement for five years, but in terms of the pricing of that, I’m assuming that’s at market cost, whereas pressure pumping and rigs also, I’m curious where you stand there in terms of contracts and how you’re addressing that. I’m expecting pressure pumping probably gets a little tighter here. Rigs could as well. If there is inflation along those lines, and we’re also focused on CapEx per megawatt, can you talk about how you’re thinking that through over the next few years?
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, I think it’s worth taking a step back and looking at what is in it for us as well as our suppliers for these long-term agreements, because I think that context is very helpful to understand why we’re executing them. We’re really in such an interesting spot in the market because we are actively using the oil field services supply chain through our drilling and completions work, but we’re not selling oil and gas. That has been something that has always been, I think, maybe historically for geothermal, as a challenge because the industry hasn’t really had the scale to command the attention of service companies over the oil and gas industry. I think that now Fervo has solved that scale problem with our pace of development. What we see is the service companies are incredibly excited to work with us.
This really comes down to actually that diversification benefit where whenever we negotiate with one of our suppliers, the key thing that I always talk about with them is, if there were to be a huge oil price crash again, which of your customers would keep calling you out for work? The answer, of course, is Fervo, because we sell a product that is under long-term power purchase agreements, where our volume of activity doesn’t fluctuate with the price of oil. That creates an interesting alignment where we want price stability on our services because we already understand what our PPA prices are going to be, and our suppliers want to have a diversification that actually provides a revenue stream from them that is decoupled from the fluctuating price of oil.
This creates an interesting opportunity where we can price five-year-plus agreements with different pricing structures that protect both parties, where it’s a win-win for both. Broadly to your point about there may being some pressure on inflationary costs, on pressure pumping or otherwise, which as always is hard to predict. We and our suppliers are both actually motivated to get longer term agreements so that we’re more insulated from that. I think some of the agreements we’ve announced this last quarter and in past years, are great examples of how we can create win-win long-term pricing agreements with our suppliers.
David Anderson, Analyst, Barclays: Makes a lot of sense. Thanks a lot, Tim. I was wondering if you could just clarify something around transmission capacity that you have. If I’m not mistaken, I think Cape One has full transmission capacity and part of Cape Two. Can you talk about what you have right now able to get on the grid, and then availability beyond that? Where do you go from there? I think there’s some more availability in the Cape area, how do you get access to that?
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: That’s right, David. I think you have those numbers correct on the Cape resource specifically. All of Cape Phase One, which is 100 MW, we have the transmission fully contracted. On Phase Two, which is 400 MW, we have 300 MW of that fully contracted and are working to close the gap there. In addition to that, we have several hundred MW fully contracted across several of our Nevada resources, and we’re actively adding to that queue every day. As you know, the transmission queue is one of these things where MW go into the interconnection queue. They come out as studies are performed and as securities are posted, things are reevaluated, so that number is constantly changing. We’ll say that is something that we’re adding to consistently, and we do view that grid connection as a primary tier of our deliverability pathway.
We also look at behind the meter as another element of that deliverability pathway and think these two things are going to be highly complementary. In addition to that, where there are medium or longer term opportunities to consider the build-out of new transmission, that is something that we certainly think that the scale of what we’re doing in EGS has an enormous benefit. It may not be worth it to build out a dedicated transmission line for something in a sub 500 MW scale, as you talk about gigawatt scale of firm power that the market desperately needs, we think that could be a compelling business opportunity for transmission developers to meet us where we are.
When we think about how to get this power to market, we look at all three of these things and certainly as we look to accelerate, Tim talked about this a bit earlier, behind the meter is really a fantastic avenue to do that. We do add to the interconnection queue and to our position broadly on a regular basis.
David Anderson, Analyst, Barclays: Thank you, David.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies.
Hannah Velasquez, Analyst, Jefferies: Hey, good morning. It’s Hannah Velasquez on for Julien. Congrats on the successful IPO and thank you for the update. As others have said, welcome to the public equity market. Can we talk a bit more about behind the meter, more specifically on timing, how you’re thinking about that? I know we talk about it as an enabler of accelerating the project pipeline, does that really imply more so post-2030, or could we see something more near term in terms of an announcement?
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah. Hannah, thanks for the welcome and good to chat with you again. I think that, as I mentioned, the purpose of behind the meter is to potentially accelerate our pipeline even ahead of what we’ve prior disclosed. The real market opportunity that we’re seeing is for pre-2030 projects. I think that’s what we’re really looking at for behind the meter.
Hannah Velasquez, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay, got it. Thank you. Just as my follow-up question on Blanford, you mentioned that the temperatures that you’re seeing there are significantly higher. Would that imply that you would see a better CapEx rate, the $ per kilowatt beyond what you announced, I believe, for Phase Two at 5,500?
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: It directionally is positive for the cost of capital for the resource. Temperature at depth is just one of the factors that we evaluate, though. It’s not something that in and of itself would potentially drive a structurally different CapEx profile. It is one thing that means that geologic resource, all else being equal, is more attractive than the Project Cape resource or otherwise. It is just one factor in the study. What it really means for us is we can achieve our target temperature for the power plant with shallower drilling, which translates into a lower cost per well. I think you would see that show up in the CapEx, but it is just one of many factors that drives the overall cost structure.
Hannah Velasquez, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay, I’ll leave it there. Thank you.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Jed Dorsheimer with William Blair.
Jed Dorsheimer, Analyst, William Blair: Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Yeah, I’ll echo the sentiments. Congratulations, welcome to the public markets. Also, congrats on Blanford. I guess, Tim, maybe you’re not prepared to do this at this point, but given the heat that you’re seeing at that depth, I suspect there’s a calculation in terms of the cost to drill the depth of that hole and the heat versus the output. I assume that this means that by my calculations, you could actually get the same output with two less wells drilled or four, I guess, for injection and extraction based on that heat. Is there a cost metric where you’re looking at the balance of, do you continue to optimize for a higher output versus the cost and as we compare it to Cape? Then I have a follow-up.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, it’s a fantastic question. Actually, it gives me an opportunity to maybe address something that is commonly misunderstood in the geothermal sector. Sometimes I see companies divided by like, well, these companies are going after medium temperature, these other companies are going after high temperature, these other companies are going after super hot temperature. I think that is not how Fervo thinks about it at all, just to be clear. What we think about is that there’s a certain benefit of going hotter, which is that you can produce more megawatt hours of electricity per unit of flow from higher temperature resources. There’s a very clear revenue benefit. There’s also a clear cost of going hotter because of two reasons. By definition, going hotter requires you to drill a deeper depth compared to shallower, lower temperature wells.
Also, drilling costs can increase as you go to higher temperatures as well because it’s just more wear and tear on the equipment, harsher environment. What I think Fervo has done from our beginning is try to balance the revenue benefits and the costs of going to deeper and hotter resources. What we try to do is at a snapshot in time, make the NPV maximizing decision of the temperature and depth that we pursue. That is not a static number because, as I mentioned, we’ve gone from an average lateral temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit at Project Red to 400 degrees Fahrenheit at Cape Phase One to 430 degrees Fahrenheit at Cape Phase Two. The reason we’ve made that move is we’ve implemented drilling improvements that mean the cost of going to higher temperature or greater depths drops.
The NPV optimizing number shifts to deeper and hotter resources over time. We are currently very excited about the GeoBlocks that we’re developing at Cape Phase Two, which are targeted for that 430-degree Fahrenheit temperature range. At a resource like Blanford, or even as we continue to improve the drilling technology, what I would expect to see from us is that we’ll actually continue that direction of moving the temperature higher. What we would like to see in the future, for example, is if we can drill a 500-degree Fahrenheit well for the same cost of drilling a 400-degree Fahrenheit well today, even though the cost per well would be the same, the power output would be substantively higher, that’s a huge part of our tech roadmap.
I think some of these artificial distinctions between, oh, this company’s only doing medium and this company’s doing high temp or otherwise, I think it’s a false dichotomy when really what you’re talking about is a continuum where there’s an, at any point in time, given certain technology assumptions, there’s an NPV maximizing point of what temperature that you drill. As the technology improves, we expect that NPV maximizing temperature to increase. That could happen at future projects at the phases at Cape, or it could happen at a categorically different resource like Blanford, where you don’t have to drill as deep to get to those higher temperatures that would lead to more output per well.
Jed Dorsheimer, Analyst, William Blair: Super helpful. Thank you. Just as my follow-up, I think it was reported that you had some blowouts in Cape Station, and I know that’s part of the process. Could you just maybe talk a little bit about what the learnings were? Has that changed anything? Was this just an anomaly? Whether or not as you’re continuing to continuous process improvement, has that shifted strategically in terms as you think about Cape Station Phase 2 in that project? Thanks.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Sure. Yeah, you’re correct. There was a report of a blowout that occurred in a single well at our Cape Station resource a few weeks ago. Per regular procedures and protocol, we addressed the issue. We were able to conduct a procedure to contain the well within just a few days, and we worked well with the regulator. I think we were excited about Obviously, you don’t want to see those kinds of incidents happen, but I was very proud of how our team responded to it, and we got high praise from the regulator and otherwise. We were able to contain the situation quickly enough that it really had no impact on the project at all. Of course, there’s learnings from it.
There’s things that we have updated in our work over rig procedures, which is the phase of operation that occurred in, so that we can implement and take lesson learned from that project going forward. I also think it’s an interesting point to maybe provide some education where the term blowout is a very charged term, particularly because like a lot of our business things
Terminology that is common in the oil and gas industry is oftentimes just borrowed to apply to things in the geothermal industry, and sometimes that can lead to major misconceptions. The use of this word is one of those, which I think the term blowout means something quite specific and potentially dangerous in the oil and gas industry. It can be true of the geothermal industry as well, but it’s important to realize that the Project Cape Station resource, this is a sub-hydrostatic reservoir that doesn’t have the over-pressured hydrocarbon zones that you’d find in a hydrocarbon resource. Also when there’s a fluid release in our system, it’s the geothermal brine that’s being released, not a flammable or explosive gas or hydrocarbon. I think it is an education point that, of course, that we were excited about our response working with the regulator.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: We were excited we were able to resolve the issue rapidly and safely with no personnel injuries or environmental damage and have no impact on the Project Cape Station resource. We’re going to apply some lessons learned to ensure that these operations are less likely to occur in the future. It’s also something that I think generated an enormous amount of misunderstanding due to the reporting around it. I do think it’s an educational opportunity to talk about how many of the inherent risks of development while drilling a resource are structurally lower in geothermal because of the lack of hydrocarbons and otherwise, which I think led to quite a bit of misunderstanding about this particular incident, even though we do take it seriously and have worked to improve.
Jed Dorsheimer, Analyst, William Blair: Thanks. That’s helpful.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Dillon Araso with Wolfe Research.
Dillon Araso, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. I’m just trying to tie together some of the prior comments around the constructive market outlook for pricing and the Google framework agreement in particular. Can you just level set us here on if the Google framework agreement moves forward with the first gigawatt, how should we think about that capacity being allocated across different resources within your development pipeline? Would you put it all on one resource? Can you spread it out? Just any color there would be helpful.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah. Good to talk to you again, Dillon, thanks for the question. This is something that we’re actively looking at, one thing that we really like about this agreement with Google is that it provides Fervo with some optionality on where we want to propose projects to Google. It won’t surprise you that we talk to them quite often and that we try to have a really close partnership with them. So we’re not proposing projects to them that we don’t think are matching the commercial intent and criteria that we’ve laid out in that agreement. We do have some flexibility across the resources in our portfolio, which is obviously really heavily anchored to Nevada and Utah today, but growing to other states as well.
So when we talk to them, when we think about resources that are readily available right now, it’s certainly those resources that we’ve talked about quite a bit, Corsac, Blanford, Cape. We do have several others that are moving quickly through our pipeline and have an active dialogue with Google across all of those AOIs.
Dillon Araso, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Got it. Thanks. Then just quick follow-up on the NVIDIA announcement.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Sure.
Dillon Araso, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Can you just confirm within this data set that you guys are building, is this proprietary? Is this an exclusive deal? I guess just given the DOE is part of it, is any of this being shared with the larger EGS industry?
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah. It’s a great question and probably a good point to remind on the Fervo mission, which is to accelerate and make geothermal energy more cost competitive. We truly believe that geothermal energy should be one of the anchor power sources in the world, and we want to move that forward. We believe Fervo is the market leader in doing that, but by no means are we the only company doing that. This is one of those things where working with the Department of Energy, you can advance the technology in a way that moves the whole industry forward. We’re not concerned about that because we think our competitive position in the industry is fantastic. To truly unlock geothermal at scale, we expect there to be major advancements in geothermal technology.
We are always mindful that these Department of Energy funded projects do come with sharing data, and we embrace that. I think in this particular agreement, we’re also excited about the fact that we have a lot of optionality to choose which data we disclose or don’t disclose. I think it’s an opportunity for us to really pursue the dual mandate here, which is to provide information and resources that lifts all boats and provides major advancement for the entire industry, but at the same time, protects Fervo’s proprietary data and our competitive positioning. I think that this funded project will be able to achieve both those things at the same time. We’ll be able to be tactical and have discretion over which data we choose to share at what point in time.
Dillon Araso, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Great. Thank you.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Sunaina Acolin with Bernstein.
Sunaina Acolin, Analyst, Bernstein: Hey, good morning, team. Congratulations on your first earnings call after going public. If I could really quickly maybe follow up on the Google framework as well. You both mentioned it. What sort of milestones are you looking for from your side to convert some of these into PPAs? What cadence should we expect you to report these on?
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, thanks for the question, Sunaina. If I’m not mistaken, think we’re sharing our first earnings call together, congratulations to you as well.
Sunaina Acolin, Analyst, Bernstein: Thank you.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: On the GFA, in terms of milestones, these are progressing through our normal development framework as our commercial teams are working closely with Google’s team to establish where there’s overlap between where Fervo would like to do a project today and where that’s helpful and constructive for Google’s own portfolio to do a project. We think there’s a ton of overlap there, that’s obviously why we signed this three gigawatt framework agreement. Would expect as we’re proposing this first gigawatt of projects to them over the next 24 months, that those projects will likely start to convert to PPAs. As they do, we’re going to tell you all about it. Think that that’s going to come.
I’d say that one of the things that we like about our partnership with Google broadly, about the GFA specifically, is that it is fairly broad in terms of optionality. We don’t necessarily look at this as a rigid structure where we have to propose X number of megawatts on Y date. We really want to have a conversation with Google and understand where they want to do projects and achieve scale. I think as they are able to communicate that to us and we’re able to communicate that to them, we see opportunities to tackle that in kind of less than linear fashion, if that makes sense. We’re certainly in an active dialogue and think over the next year or two as we’re working through this, that we’ll have more to talk about.
Sunaina Acolin, Analyst, Bernstein: Great. Maybe if I can just follow up. Everything around that three gigawatt Google framework is incremental to the 658 megawatts that you mentioned, correct?
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: That’s correct.
Sunaina Acolin, Analyst, Bernstein: Excellent. Thank you so much. Congrats again.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Joseph Osha with Guggenheim Partners. Joseph, your line may be on mute. Our next question comes from Ben Kallo with Baird.
Ben Kallo, Analyst, Baird: Hey, guys. Thanks for fitting me in. Congratulations. My first question is on accelerating. Could you just talk about how you balance accelerating, if you’re going to go do parallel projects? Do you want to see more results from Cape? Also, like ordering long lead time equipment, how do you think about that versus equipment evolving and next generation equipment, not ordering it too soon? On the people side, can you talk to us about what the extra capital that you have has allowed you guys to do? My follow-up is just on water, and how important it is. We’ve seen projects get canceled or change technologies because of water usage.
I think there’s some inaccuracies about how you guys use water, could you just talk if that could ultimately be a benefit for you guys in some of projects, specifically on the data center side? Thank you.
David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, thanks. I appreciate both questions. I’ll try to hit it, knock them out quickly here. In terms of accelerating projects, I think very similar to our answer earlier on customers are not really waiting for more milestones at Cape Phase One before advancing commercially. We also have seen all the milestones from Cape Phase One in terms of well testing and construction timelines and otherwise to feel comfortable moving forward with parallel projects and the maturity of the technology. We’re both pursuing that from getting the right human capital and resources lined up, also from a long lead time item standpoint. This is one thing that I think is really powerful about our standardized GeoBlock and also the long-term supply agreements, is just that, to be honest, you flagged a key tension on long lead time projects.
There’s a tension to order more now because you want to ensure that you have the equipment available to grow. If you wait, then you can incorporate more design improvements into those projects as you move forward with the long lead time equipment. Maybe we have good ideas about turbine design or casing design between now and two or three years from now, it would behoove us to order it.
I think this is really the power of the agreements that we have where we can kind of have our cake and eat it too, because these are long-term supply agreements, for example, with Turboden, the MHI subsidiary that cover 35 GeoBlocks, where we have a delivery cadence with them where we know that there’s certainty of supply for turbines that goes forward that covers that 1.75 gigawatts, we’re not required to do a design freeze of the entire pipeline right now today. What we’re focused on is certainty of supply as well as flexibility. The long-term agreements that we have with a company like Turboden balance that well, I think, where we can be certain about turbine supply, also have the opportunity to partner for improved designs in the future.
We’re kind of moving full steam ahead on parallel projects and long lead time equipment at this point in time. I also appreciate the opportunity to talk about water, because you’re right, this is far commonly misunderstood. We actually have committed to using air cooling for 100% of our power projects going forward, we have no evaporative losses in our system at all from a power conversion standpoint using this Organic Rankine Cycle air-cooled technology. That’s quite exciting for us. The main use of water in our system is actually to supplement the subsurface flow, and we do that with deep water wells. I think the key for this is even in arid regions, there’s an abundance of what we consider to be brackish or degraded water.
Water that’s deep enough and high enough salinity that it’s not actually suitable for agricultural or municipal purposes. It is suitable for our purpose because what we’re doing is recirculating that water through the geothermal reservoir. What we’ve done at Project Cape is I think quite instructive, which is sourcing some of that water and then recirculating it in the process. It’s water that we’re not in competition generally with farmers or municipalities on because it is degraded water that’s not of the right quality for municipal uses, is of the right quality for recirculation in a geothermal reservoir. Our freshwater consumption is sort of de minimis, and we can use that degraded water in our process. As a result, anywhere you go in the U.S. or anywhere in the world, you can always find degraded water.
The challenge has always been about fresh water. Because we have a process that can use that degraded water, we have not found water to be a limiter in our development.
Ben Kallo, Analyst, Baird: Thank you, guys.
Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from Justin Clare with Roth Capital Partners.
Justin Clare, Analyst, Roth Capital Partners: Hey, good morning. Thanks for the questions here. Just wanted to follow up on Cape Phase 1. You’re on track for first power delivery in Q4 2026 with the first GeoBlock commissioning underway. Wondering if you just walk through the remaining kind of critical items between now and commercial operation and just what milestones should we be looking for over the next few months here?
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Yes, it’s a great question. For the initial well pads in GeoBlock unit 1, we are mechanically complete and in the commissioning phase. I was out on site last week, which was quite exciting. The kind of activities you’re seeing here is we’re energizing systems for the first time. We’re testing that equipment. We’re making sure that our control logic is working as intended, filling the plant with the organic Rankine fluid that will serve as the working fluid and doing that kind of test and commissioning work. We’re going to continue to progress through that commissioning work. The milestones you’ll see is first checks of subsystems that they’re working as intended and then bringing the full plant online and running through a test energy phase in advance of the commercial operations date.
That’s the main activity that we’re working on Cape Station Phase 1 right now is all the initial drilling is completed, all the initial wells are completed. The power plants, two of the three have achieved a mechanically complete milestone. We plan to finish the third in the coming months. The major bulk of the work out there is commissioning, which mostly comprises of system checks and energization. That’s what we’re working for on right now and plan to complete through the end of this year.
Justin Clare, Analyst, Roth Capital Partners: Okay. Great. Just a follow-up. For the Phase 1 wells, they’ve been drilled, stimulated, completed. Just wondering what you’ve learned about the subsurface program so far for that project in terms of flow rates, temperature, or reservoir performance that you can share at this point.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Yeah, I mean, the short answer is a ton. As I mentioned, we’ve got terabytes and terabytes of data, fiber optic sensing in these wells, logging trials, tracer studies. The nice thing about drilling 20+ wells as we have for Cape Station Phase 1 is it provides an enormous opportunity for learning while doing. Each well can some way serve as a test for different well spacing designs, different frac plug designs, different casing designs, and fracture spacing designs. Everything is all about maximizing the learning and the output. In addition to that, I think we’re excited that, and especially this was reviewed exhaustively, as you can imagine, in the non-recourse project that David discussed earlier.
The well test that we’ve conducted on the key pads for Cape Phase One showed that the reservoir performance from a flow rate and temperature standpoint is all in line with the expectations and kind of within the range that you would expect across a portfolio of wells given the trials that we’re running there. I think that we feel that the well test data that we’ve done so far, as well as the logging work and the fiber optic work, has been very exciting in terms of confirming the reservoir assumptions that we’ve made for the quality and performance of the wells as we go forward.
Justin Clare, Analyst, Roth Capital Partners: Okay. Great to hear. Congratulations.
Tim Latimer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fervo Energy: Thank you.
Conference Call Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.