Enhanced geothermal startup Fervo Energy has raised $462 million to complete its first large-scale power plant and begin development on several others as it races to provide electricity to a power-hungry grid.

The new funds will help the company continue work on its 500-megawatt Cape Station power plant in Utah while starting development on several others, Sara Jewett, senior vice president of strategy at Fervo, told TechCrunch.

The new round was led by B Capital with participation from AllianceBernstein, Atacama Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, CalSTRS, Capricorn Investment Group, Carbon Equity, Centaurus Capital, Climate First, Congruent Ventures, CPP Investments, Devon Energy, Echelon, Galvanize, Google, Impact Science Ventures, Kris Singh, JB Straubel, Liberty Mutual Investments, Marunouchi Innovation Partners, Mercuria, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui and Co., and Sabanci Climate Ventures.

Fervo has an existing deal with Google to supply it with electricity for its data centers.

Fervo has targeted 2026 to bring the first phase of Cape Station online, and Jewett confirmed that it will be “mechanically complete” this year. “It’s very real and very tangible.”

The new round comes six months after the startup announced a $206 million financing package, including loans and project-level preferred equity, for Cape Station. Last year, Fervo raised nearly $500 million in equity and debt.

Enhanced geothermal has been in development for years but has recently soared as favorable conditions have lifted its prospects.

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Chief among them is rising data center demand. Large tech companies like Google and Meta have been eyeing geothermal as a potential solution to their energy needs. Earlier this year, an analysis by the Rhodium Group found that by 2030, enhanced geothermal could provide nearly two-thirds of new data center demand at or below what operators are paying today.

Geothermal is also viewed favorably within the Trump administration. Energy secretary Chris Wright’s previous company, Liberty Energy, participated in a $138 million round that Fervo raised in 2022. Like many of its peers, the company uses fracking and directional drilling techniques borrowed from the oil and gas industry. Many Fervo employees used to work in oil and gas, applying their knowledge of drilling and subsurface development to a new challenge.

Fervo is considered a frontrunner among enhanced geothermal startups, which drill deeper than existing geothermal developers to tap hotter rocks and deliver more power.

That knowledge has helped Fervo bring down the time it takes to drill a new well. The company’s first wells took about a month, but this summer, Fervo announced that it had completed one in 16 days. “We are in the mid-teens these days, on average, for our well drilling times,” Jewett said. “That is pretty good, but we always have more improvements to make.”

The company’s obsession with drilling time is both economic and a point of pride. “Roughly half the cost of wells is in the drilling time,” Jewett said. Shorter drilling times mean that Fervo can complete power plants more quickly, bringing in revenue sooner. They’re also a sign of mastery. “It’s also a good representation of how much you’re investing in the well, how much you’re troubleshooting, how many issues are plaguing you that end up costing money,” she said.

For now, Fervo is focused on the Western U.S., where hot rocks sit closer to the surface. At the company’s Cape Station site in Utah, for example, Fervo has to drill down 8,500 feet to tap into 450˚ F rock.

“If you go to Pennsylvania or West Virginia, [the hot rock] exists much lower,” Jewett said. Only after the company is comfortable with how quickly it can drill a well in the West will it expand elsewhere, including abroad.

“There are a lot of really high-potential places across the world,” she said.

Within the U.S., though, there are plenty of different types of rock for Fervo to drill through, giving it the potential to build up sufficient technical experience before heading to other countries. By that point, Jewett expects that differences in regulations will be the primary hurdle.

Given skyrocketing energy demand from data centers and Fervo’s progress at Cape Station, there have been rumors that the company might file for go public in the coming year or so. Jewett wouldn’t comment on those, but she said that the company is seeing “off-the-charts demand.”

Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor.

De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.

You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing tim.dechant@techcrunch.com.