Good Morning, here is this week's overview
New Geothermal Breakthrough?
The Rundown: Two new geothermal startups just made the leap from R&D to real-world projects. Fervo Energy signed Baker Hughes to supply turbines for its 300 MW Cape Station in Utah, a deal that shifts the project from concept to actual progress. Fervo’s tech borrows from oil and gas, drilling 16,000 feet into 520°F rock, and if it delivers, Cape Station could power 180,000 homes around the clock. The agreement comes on the back of $206M in fresh funding, a sign that capital markets and policymakers (on both sides of the aisle) are starting to treat geothermal as real infrastructure. Read more here
Fervo Energy
Meanwhile, Sage Geosystems cut a deal with Ormat Technologies to deploy its “pressure geothermal” system, which gets extra energy from each well by capturing both heat and hydraulic pressure. That partnership gives Sage immediate operating ground inside an established developer’s portfolio, a fast track that most climate tech startups never see.
Here’s the key distinction: geothermal power is not new. Companies like Ormat and Calpine have run commercial plants for decades, but only in places with rare underground hot-water reservoirs. What’s new is that startups like Fervo and Sage are adapting oilfield technology to tap deep dry rock, which could make geothermal deployable almost anywhere.
The bigger picture: data centers are desperate for 24/7 clean power, and geothermal is one of the few technologies that can actually provide it. Analysts say it could cover two-thirds of data center demand by 2030. However, I would heavily caution this estimate, as geothermal has been the “next decade” technology for a while now. Fervo and Sage signing commercial agreements is certainly a step in the right direction, but we will see how this plays out in the long term.
Power Moves
🤝 Recent Deals
Equinor CEO Anders Opedal
🌍 Equinor injects nearly USD $1 Billion into Ørsted following U.S. setbacks
Equinor will invest up to USD $941 million in Ørsted’s USD $9.4 billion rights issue, allowing the Norwegian energy major to maintain its 10% stake in the Danish offshore wind giant. The capital raise comes after U.S. President Trump suspended offshore wind licensing earlier this year, compounding sector challenges from inflation and supply chain delays. Shares rose 4.7% on the news.
🔋 PowerBank pivots to clean energy with Ontario battery storage deal
PowerBank (NASDAQ: SUUN) surged recently after securing a 22-year capacity contract for its 4.99 MW Cramahe, Ontario battery project. The deal locks in predictable revenues at $1,221 per MW per business day, backed by a $25.8M RBC loan and a 30% Canadian Clean Tech Investment Tax Credit. Long seen as a speculative solar play, PowerBank is repositioning as a diversified clean energy infrastructure company with recurring cash flows.
🚀 Tech Watch
Crux co-CEOs Alfred Johnson and Allen Kramer
💵 Crux expands into tax and preferred equity financing
Clean energy finance startup Crux is widening its scope again. After starting as a marketplace for trading IRA tax credits and later moving into debt financing, Crux is now entering the tax equity and preferred equity markets. Tax equity is a $32–35 billion market where developers partner with banks to unlock tax benefits and accelerated depreciation, making projects cheaper to finance and easier to stack with other funding. Preferred equity, while smaller, gives developers extra capital just before projects go live, with investors receiving fixed, priority returns. By digitizing these complex deals and layering in AI tools to cut costs and speed up paperwork, Crux wants to become a one-stop shop for clean energy financing.
⚛️ Commonwealth Fusion Systems raises $863M
Fusion leader CFS closed an $863M Series B2, bringing total funding near $3B, about one-third of all private fusion capital. Backers include Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global, NVIDIA Ventures, Stanley Druckenmiller, Google, and a Japanese consortium led by Mitsui and Mitsubishi. Proceeds will fund the SPARC demo in Massachusetts and the first ARC commercial plant in Virginia, reinforcing CFS’s lead in making fusion an investable clean energy asset class.
🇨🇦 General Atomics invests $20M in Canadian fusion venture
General Atomics will make a $20 million, 10-year strategic investment in Canada’s Fusion Fuel Cycles (FFC), a joint venture between Canadian Nuclear Laboratories and Kyoto Fusioneering. The funding supports UNITY-2, a deuterium-tritium fuel cycle test facility at Chalk River Laboratories, set to open in 2026. UNITY-2 will simulate the full fuel cycle and provide a platform for testing fusion components under real-world conditions. The D-T cycle is the most practical near-term path to fusion, but managing tritium safely and efficiently is one of the hardest technical hurdles.
