Houston geothermal company expands partnership with Google to provide electricity to Nevada

Geothermal energy from Houston-based Fervo Energy will soon help power the world’s most popular website.

Through a first-of-its-kind proposition, Las Vegas-based utility NV Energy, provide 115 megawatts of geothermal energy generated by Fervo for Google’s two data centers in Nevada. Financial terms were not disclosed.

In 2021, Google partners with Fervo develop a geothermal energy pilot project in Nevada. Two years later, electricity from that project began flowing into the Nevada grid serving Google’s two data centers. Google spent $600 million to build each of the centers, located in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb, and Storey County, east of Reno.

The proposed deal with NV Energy would bring about 25 times more geothermal energy capacity to the Nevada grid, according to Google, and enable more clean energy around the clock for the search engine company’s data centers in Nevada.

A data center consumes 10 to 50 times more energy per square foot of floor space than a typical office building. according to the US Department of Energy.

“The partnership between NV Energy and Google to develop new solutions to bring clean energy technologies – like enhanced geothermal – to the Nevada grid at this scale is remarkable. This innovative proposal will not be funded by other NV Energy customers, but will help ensure that all of our customers benefit from cleaner, greener energy resources,” said Doug Cannon, president and CEO of NV Energy, in an article in Google blog.

Utility regulators must still approve the proposal.

“If approved, it will provide a model for other utilities and large customers in Nevada to accelerate their clean energy goals,” Cannon said.

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This article was originally published on EnergyCapital.