It's Friday. The rigs came from the oil patch and the playbook came from shale. As of this week, the product is electrons on the Utah grid.
In today's edition:
🌋 Big Story: Fervo's geothermal plant hits the grid
⚡ Quick Hits: a battery spot market, Army power leases, pricier solar
💰 Capital: DOE's $1.9B for existing lines
📋 Policy Watch: transmission credit, fusion bill, AI audit
📊 Chart of the Day: utilities pick gas
Presented by Moiz Kapadia
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The Big Story
Fervo's Cape Station sends first enhanced geothermal power to the grid
Fervo Energy synchronized the first 33 MW GeoBlock at Cape Station in Beaver County, Utah, and began exporting electricity, which the company calls a first for a greenfield enhanced geothermal systems project. It uses horizontal drilling adapted from oil and gas, with multiple wells per pad. Commercial operation of the first block is targeted for October 1.
"This is a gamechanger for the geothermal industry. It establishes EGS as the defining new power generation technology of our time."
Two more 33 MW GeoBlocks, completing Phase I at roughly 100 MW, are targeted for January 1, 2027, and a 400 MW Phase II for 2028, according to the company.
Fervo says about 900 MW is contracted in total; Google, with a 396 MW power purchase agreement, is the offtaker it names.
"First Power is proof the science works," said chief technology officer Jack Norbeck.
Source: GlobeNewswire, ThinkGeoEnergy
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Quick Hits
Technology milestones from across the grid
Five moves from across the stack.
Zhejiang opened its provincial spot market to 40 independent grid-side battery projects totaling 2.54 GW/5.1 GWh, with full price-and-quantity bidding from January 1, 2027. ESS News
The US Army conditionally selected Ameresco, Indelible-Bloom and Frontier Power USA for roughly 50-year leases to build gas, fuel cell, battery and advanced nuclear power at six installations, with initial operation targeted by 2030. POWER Magazine
Wood Mackenzie and SEIA found US commercial solar rose 5.6% year over year to $1.77/W in Q2 and utility tracking systems 2.0% to $1.06/W, as tariff-driven racking, wiring and freight costs ate module savings. pv magazine USA
Škoda JS signed on as sole supplier of control rod drive mechanisms for Rolls-Royce SMR, for reactors planned at Wylfa in Wales and Temelín in the Czech Republic. World Nuclear News
Exide Energy Solutions completed the first phase of its 6 GWh lithium-ion cell plant near Bengaluru, serving mobility and stationary storage. Mercom India
The Capital Stack
DOE's SPARK program puts $1.9 billion into squeezing more from existing lines
The Department of Energy awarded $1.9 billion to 31 projects in 26 states under SPARK, a program built around reconductoring, dynamic line ratings and other advanced transmission technologies, Canary Media reported. Utilities and states add $3.35 billion in matching funds, for $5.25 billion in total. The two largest grants, $250 million each, go to state-led projects in Colorado and Oklahoma that expand capacity sharing between the Eastern and Western grids.
Source: Canary Media
Also in the capital stack:
Exelon's venture arm 2c2i took a minority stake in Continuum Industries and will deploy its Optioneer transmission-routing software across Exelon's PJM utilities. The amount was not disclosed. Utility Dive
Policy Watch
Sen. Martin Heinrich introduced the Grid Resiliency Tax Credit Act, a 10-year, 30% investment tax credit for interregional or 100-plus-mile lines that add at least 500 MW, as the US averaged about 400 new miles in 2023 and 2024 against nearly 4,000 in 2013. With no Republican cosponsors, passage this Congress looks unlikely. Latitude Media
Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Jay Obernolte introduced the bipartisan American Leadership in Fusion Act, about $10 billion in all, including $3 billion for demonstrations and $2 billion for a milestone program. A vote this Congress is unlikely, Heatmap reported. Heatmap
The New York PSC ordered electric, gas and water utilities to file an inventory of every AI use case within 60 days, citing risks from hallucination to "functional brittleness," an early template for policing grid software. Utility Dive
Chart of the Day
Utilities pick gas for data centers while the rest of the market builds clean
59% of the 42 GW utilities have in planned projects is gas, against 4% of independent developers' 169 GW. Of the 62 GW that 26 vertically integrated utilities have lined up for data center load, 37.3 GW is gas.
Source: Latitude Media, Latitude Intelligence analysis of EIA data · September 24, 2026
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