Dive Brief:
- XGS Energy has partnered with energy technology company Baker Hughes to help advance the 150 megawatt New Mexico geothermal project it is developing to help support Meta Platforms’ data centers in the state, XGS announced Wednesday.
- Baker Hughes offers geothermal well construction, completion and production, well and asset integrity and power generation services among its geothermal solutions, and will provide engineering services to help build XGS’ New Mexico project.
- Meta and XGS announced the 150 MW project last June, with construction of the geothermal plant expected in two phases to be completed by 2030.
Dive Insight:
The 2025 geothermal deal was Meta’s second and was among a spate of clean energy deals the social media and tech conglomerate made last year. XGS’ proprietary geothermal systems are designed to not require water, allowing the company to decouple geothermal energy production from typical constraints like access to water or permeable rocks.
XGS announced it successfully completed a commercial-scale demonstration of its technology last fall, running its geothermal systems for over 3,000 hours in an existing California well that had been idle for over two decades.
Under the agreement, Baker Hughes will support XGS in the exploration and engineering of the 150 MW project.
“The difference between a great idea and a great asset is the quality of execution in the field,” Martin Craighead, an XGS director, said in the release. “This agreement reflects XGS’s priority to surround its innovation with executors that have decades of experience delivering complex energy infrastructure at industrial scale.”
Early collaboration between the two companies will help reduce the technical risk of the project and speed up their ability to validate the viability of reservoirs, said Maria Claudia Borras, Baker Hughes’ Chief Growth and Experience Officer
Meta — which owns social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — signed its first geothermal deal in 2024, inking an agreement with Sage Geosystems for 150 MW of next generation geothermal energy to power its data centers east of the Rockies. The first phase of that project is expected to be operational by 2027, with a second phase operational 3-4 years after that.
The build out and operation of data centers comprise the bulk of Meta’s scope 3 emissions, Meta Head of Net Zero Strategy Devon Lake said in February at an industry conference. As Meta looks to reach net-zero emissions by 2030, Lake said the company is “really looking forward to expanding our use of renewable energy to address [its] value chain emissions.”
