How Enhanced Geothermal Can Deliver Clean, "Always On" Power for Rising Energy Demands

**Bryce Yonker** (0:00)
Welcome to the next edition of GridPulse. I'm Bryce Yonker with Grid Forward. Today we have with us Sarah Jewett. Sarah, thanks for being on.

**Sarah Jewett** (0:09)
You bet. Thanks so much for having me, Bryce.

**Bryce Yonker** (0:11)
Sarah is from Fervo, who has done an awesome job bringing awareness to the geothermal space. Congratulations on the big IPO and everything that's been going on over there.

**Sarah Jewett** (0:21)
Thank you so much.

**Bryce Yonker** (0:23)
Why don't you introduce yourself? Who are you? What's been keeping you busy at Fervo?

**Sarah Jewett** (0:29)
Nothing's busy at Fervo. I am Sarah Jewett. I am the Chief Operating Officer at Fervo Energy. I have been here since about 20, I guess the summer of 2020, so about six years.
I am here because I'm incredibly passionate about proliferating geothermal energy, which Fervo is trying to do, and that keeps me busy every day with an incredibly wide variety of different things. I'm really looking forward to digging into it.

**Bryce Yonker** (1:03)
Let's jump in.
Everybody in our community knows the basics of what geothermal energy is, but let's start a little bit there. It's not a new form of energy generation, but it has quite a bit of attention recently. Why is there more attention surging into geothermal right now?

**Sarah Jewett** (1:22)
There was an enormous demand for energy prior to even the data center and AI boom, and that is because we have consistently grown as a global economy to require more and more and more energy over time. It's been growing at a pretty reasonably flat rate, but we've seen over the last about a decade in the United States to see greater demands on the energy system, from increasing electrification, from on-shoring of manufacturing, to United States manufacturing sites. We have also seen just an increase in the demand for energy all around now that AI is big on the scene, and so the power demands are going up. I am saying power in general because it truly is an energy story, not just a clean energy story, but geothermal energy provides something that is truly unique in that we provide always-on energy which is the profile that many look for because you want to have reliable energy so you can turn on the lights whenever you want to turn them on, not reliant on a specific type of weather.
You also, in modern day, we're very interested in clean energy, and so geothermal energy is exactly that. We provide reliable energy that is always on because the Earth's heat is always hot, and it is clean energy. At a time when there is enormous demand for energy, and there's enormous demand for clean energy, geothermal is deploying technologies that are tested in other industries but have never been applied to geothermal before in a way that is promising a pretty enormous expansion for this industry at really a very, very critical time for energy.

**Bryce Yonker** (3:10)
So, I don't need a verbal overview of your project map or frankly of the ecosystem generally, but where's the action right now geographically for geothermal power?

**Sarah Jewett** (3:20)
Yeah, so the action is in the west and for Fervo Energy, it's specifically in a rural county in southwest Utah called Beaver County, where we are building a 500 megawatt very large enhanced geothermal systems project.
It is the world's first large scale commercial EGS project, and we have communicated with the market that the first 100 megawatts will come online by the end of this year, and we are on track to do that. The remainder of the project is promised for delivery in 2028, and the entire project is fully contracted at this point in time.

**Bryce Yonker** (3:57)
Right. Same place our main event will be in Utah.
I don't need exact prices. I'm sure you're not going to share them, but I think some people might think of geothermal as a more costly resource. Where are things now and where do you expect them to be heading over the next handful of years?

**Sarah Jewett** (4:13)
Yeah. So the demand for reliable clean energy right now is pretty immense. We're seeing demand well in excess of $100 a megawatt hour. When I entered this business, we thought that we would see pricing in the $60 to $80 a megawatt hour for firm clean energy.
At that point in time, I think that was pretty realistic and we were seeing a future ability to build projects that were in the money. But as the demand for energy has come up and we have seen pricing over $100 a megawatt hour, that has given us the runway to be able to build these projects at economic rates. We also recently benefited from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, extending geothermal tax credits, which has been really helpful as the industry has started to spread its wings and build new projects. Obviously, those tax credits will expire in the next decade, which we believe is appropriate for all industries.