Google signs 396 MW geothermal deal with Fervo to power Utah data center growth

Google locks in geothermal supply

Google has signed a power purchase agreement with Fervo for 396 megawatts of electricity from the geothermal company's Cape Station plant in Utah, according to TechCrunch. The plant is expected to start delivering power in 2028, and the output is intended for a new data center Google plans to build in the state.

The agreement, announced Tuesday, also gives Google until June 2030 to exercise an option for an additional 600 megawatts, which would bring the total commitment close to a gigawatt.

Clean power for AI expansion

The deal lands as Google and other hyperscale cloud operators compete aggressively for new electricity supplies to feed data center construction driven by AI workloads. TechCrunch notes that Google has long been among the larger corporate buyers of clean power in the US and elsewhere, purchasing wind, solar and battery output as part of its pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2030.

That goal became harder to hit in April, when Google signed a deal with data center developer Crusoe for 933 megawatts of natural gas generation in Texas, as TechCrunch reports. The Fervo agreement gives Google a way to keep building AI capacity while leaning on a source that does not carry the same emissions risk as the gas purchase. Unlike wind and solar, geothermal plants can generate around the clock, which makes them attractive for facilities that never power down.

Considerable headroom at Cape Station

Fervo's Cape Station site is permitted for up to 2 gigawatts of development, and there may be far more available. Sarah Jewett, Fervo's senior vice president of strategy, told TechCrunch in May that a third-party engineering assessment found enough subsurface heat at the site to produce roughly twice that amount.

If fully built out, those 4 gigawatts would approximately double the entire geothermal generating capacity of the United States, according to a recent US Department of Energy report cited by TechCrunch. That same report estimates that enhanced geothermal technologies, which drill deeper to reach heat that conventional plants cannot tap, could unlock up to 57 terawatts of generation potential nationwide. If Fervo's Utah operations go according to plan, TechCrunch suggests Google's deal could eventually grow beyond the initial gigawatt-scale commitment.

A partnership with history

The two companies are not new to each other. TechCrunch reports that Fervo and Google have worked together for more than five years, with Google buying some of the earliest electricity Fervo ever produced. Google also invested in Fervo's most recent funding round before the geothermal company went public.

The market reacted strongly to the news. Fervo's shares jumped roughly 30% on the day the deal was announced before pulling back as some traders took profits, according to TechCrunch, following a period in which the stock had given up the gains from its first-day pop and more.

Why it matters

AI data center growth is running straight into the limits of the electrical grid, and hyperscalers are increasingly responding by underwriting new generation directly rather than waiting for utilities to catch up. Google's near-gigawatt commitment shows that enhanced geothermal has moved from small pilot projects to utility-scale procurement, giving cloud providers a clean alternative that generates continuously rather than intermittently.

For Fervo, the deal is validation at the largest scale yet, with an anchor customer that has supported the company since its early days. And for the broader industry, it signals that if drilling techniques can reliably access deep heat, geothermal could become a meaningful part of the energy mix powering the AI buildout, one utility-sized contract at a time.