Canadian clean energy upstart Eavor Technologies Inc. has set its sights on the US data center market after successfully commissioning the "world's first" closed-loop geothermal system.
Eavor recently started up that system in Geretsried, Germany, and is now sending power to the grid. The 8-MW facility draws heat from the earth by circulating fluid through a well drilled to a depth of about five kilometers. Unlike conventional hydrothermal power plants, the "Eavor-Loop" can be deployed almost anywhere, the company says.
"We have shown that it works," Mark Fitzgerald, Eavor's president and CEO, said at a press briefing in Washington, DC, on Dec. 10. "We've shown that you can generate power, and we've shown that the thermal delivery — or the delivery of energy from the subsurface — is at or greater than what we modeled."
Now, Eavor is working to commercialize its system, eyeing markets where zero-emission power resources are tight, such as Japan and the eastern US. Artificial intelligence data centers are a major focus, Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald was appointed CEO in October after a career at Malaysian state oil company Petronas.
Eavor is not the only geothermal company pursuing deals with hyperscalers. The apparent front-runner, Houston-based Fervo Energy Co., recently raised $462 million from Google LLC and other investors to deploy its geothermal systems. The Alphabet Inc. subsidiary has also tapped Fervo — through a power purchase agreement with NV Energy Inc. — to supply 115 MW to Google's data centers in Nevada.
Unlike Eavor, Fervo uses hydraulic fracturing to open up deep underground heat reservoirs. The company then shoots water into the fissured rock and draws it up out of a second well.
The Eavor-Loop, by contrast, heats water by circulating it through lateral wells, which resemble the tines of a fork. As the fluid grows warmer, it becomes less dense and rises back to the surface to spin a turbine. The company envisions licensing its technology to oil and gas companies, which would handle drilling and operations.
Another competitor, XGS Energy Inc., reached an agreement in June with Meta Platforms Inc. to develop a 150-MW geothermal project in New Mexico. As with Eavor, XGS Energy says its system is designed to recycle 100% of its water, though XGS has yet to connect its technology to the grid.
Closed-loop geothermal systems may be costlier to deploy than competing technologies. But the maintenance costs are far lower, according to Jeanine Vany, co-founder and executive vice president of corporate affairs at Eavor.
For one, Vany said, there is no need for continuous pumping, and therefore, no parasitic load.
"The lights can turn off, everything can die, but our system still works," Vany added.
Vany also said the Eavor-Loop can operate for up to 100 years without any need for more drilling. And since there is no fracking involved, Eavor has the flexibility to build in urban centers.
Michael Liebreich, a clean energy consultant and adviser to Eavor, hailed the company's first commercial demonstration in Germany as "big news."
"Closed loop geothermal offers a very different value proposition to wind and solar," Liebreich wrote in a Dec. 7 newsletter. "It isn't weather-dependent. It uses a tiny fraction of the land area. It can flex up and down to follow demand."
That said, "to extract a significant amount of heat you need to do an awful lot of drilling," Liebreich cautioned. "At its heart, Eavor is a bet on improvements in drilling technology — deeper, faster, more precise, more automated and with fewer mistakes."
