Here’s what you should know today:

• COOLING, TECH, AND POWER:  Sage wants to use geothermal to power data centers, RISC-V chipmaker launches, Natural Gas: A love story,

• CAPITAL MARKETS: Nvidia loses $1.2T in market cap, JLL’s $300B edge market, Nokia’s massive digital infra bet

• NEW BUILDS: Back from the dead: Tract AZ, Edged Energy in Columbus, $750M ground-breaking in Ohio, and more

🤖 Cooling, Tech, and Power

How One Startup is Using the Earth to Store Data Center Power

Sage Geosystems, a geothermal startup founded by oil and gas veterans, is redefining energy storage with its geopressured geothermal system.

Sage's technology involves drilling a well to create a fracture in specific rock formations, which then serves as a reservoir. Excess solar, wind, or other renewable energy is used to pump water into this reservoir, storing it under pressure as it expands.
When electricity is needed, opening the facility's valves releases the water, which rises to the surface and drives a turbine to generate power.

CEO Cindy Taff describes it this way: “We pump the water into the fracture so it opens up like a balloon. When we want the water back, we let Mother Nature close the fracture, and that basically jettisons the water, so we don’t have to pump it out, which means that we don’t have to spend this huge amount of energy to get energy out.”

By storing excess renewable energy in underground reservoirs, the system can release this power on demand, effectively using the earth as a massive battery. The company’s pilot tests demonstrated that its system could provide up to 18 hours of storage, with a levelized cost of storage ranging between 2 cents and 4 cents per kilowatt-hour.

EarthStore in Texas

The company recently secured $17 million in funding to support the development of its first commercial-scale facility in Texas.
This 3-megawatt plant named, EarthStore, will not only harness the earth's heat but also serve as an energy storage system, offering both short and long-duration storage solutions by using pressurized water stored underground.

The upcoming Texas facility will begin construction this year and occupy a 10-acre site near a coal power plant owned by the San Miguel Electric Cooperative Inc. The plant will store electricity generated by a small solar array to continuously power a data center, showcasing the system's potential as a scalable energy storage solution.

In addition to the Texas project, Sage is exploring further geothermal opportunities in California, Arizona, and internationally.

What’s more: geothermal has been seriously gaining traction. A recent study by Princeton University and Fervo Energy found that these systems could unlock over 100GW of geothermal capacity in the Western U.S., thanks to advancements in drilling technology and the ability to store energy.

By tapping into the earth's natural heat and using it as a flexible, reliable energy source, Sage Geosystems hopes to pave the way to a future where renewable energy can be stored and used on demand.

For a more technical breakdown of how Sage’s geothermal concept will work, check out this article at PowerMag.

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🤖 More to Explore

1. Reuters: US will invest $2.2B updating the national power grid. The DOE says that the upgrades will add almost 13GW of capacity and support increased manufacturing capacity, more data centers, and improved transmission of renewable power. The funding will be allocated to eight projects across 18 states.

2. Can natural gas save a power-hungry data center industry? With power grids strained and nuclear projects stalled, many data center operators are looking to natural gas to fill the void.
   “I think that the big developers are realizing that they're kind of up against a brick wall right now in terms of extracting more generation off the grid,” says Alan Armstrong, CEO of natural gas supplier Williams Companies.
   Goldman Sachs predicted data center power demand in the U.S. will drive around 3.3 billion cubic feet per day of new natural gas demand by 2030.

3. Akeana, RISC-V startup, launches with a $100M piggy bank. The company has been in stealth mode since its inception in 2021. Its CPU core designs are based on RISC-V architecture, an open-source competitor to ARM technology which allows customers to avoid the licensing feed that ARM charges. To learn more about RISC-V and the future of GPU core architecture, check this out:

👷 New Construction

Meta Agrees to 375MW Solar PPA for Louisianna Data Centers

Meta has secured long-term Power Purchase Agreements with German energy giant RWE AG to procure 374 MW of green electricity from two U.S. solar parks. This deal underscores Meta’s ongoing commitment to powering its global operations with 100% renewable energy.

The agreements will see Meta sourcing power from RWE’s 274-MW County Run Solar project in Illinois and the 100-MW Lafitte Solar project in Louisiana.
Both photovoltaic plants are expected to be operational by late 2025. The deal marks Meta’s first renewable investment in Louisiana.

Urvi Parekh, Meta’s head of renewable energy, emphasized the significance of these partnerships in achieving the company’s sustainability goals, stating, “Partnering with renewable energy providers like RWE to bring new solar energy projects online is an important part of our approach to energy procurement.”

RWE, a major player in the global renewable energy sector, sees this collaboration as a strategic move to meet the growing demand for clean energy from tech giants. “RWE’s continued investment in the U.S. renewables market is underpinned by new opportunities to partner with leading technology companies like Meta,” said Andrew Flanagan, CEO of RWE Clean Energy.

RWE had inked an earlier PPA with Meta in Tennessee, as well as a wind deal with Nokia and a wind PPA with Microsoft.

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👷 More Construction Deals

• Back from the dead: Previously abandoned“Tract” project gets green light: The new project will neighbor the site of the original project; a massive 30-building, 5.6 million square foot complex in Buckeye, AZ that was scrapped due to opposition by residents. Reports suggest the new facility could represent a $20 billion investment by Tract.

• Thor Equities invests big with Atlanta-area data center site: The land acquired is ready-made for data center development and includes a 50MW, 506,000-square-foot substation. The purchase comes on the heels of Thor’s recent acquisition of two industrial facilities in New Jersey totaling 291,500 square feet.

• Edged is bringing another 24MW to Ohio: Data Center builder and operator Edged Energy broke ground this week on its newest facility in New Albany, Ohio. The new data center will be optimized for energy efficient and will feature their ThermalWorks waterless cooling system.

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-Taylor