A major new investment is bringing geothermal energy back into focus. Fervo Energy has secured $421 million to build and expand its Cape Station geothermal project in Utah. The deal marks one of the largest recent financings in the U.S. geothermal sector.
This move comes at a time when energy systems are changing fast. Demand for reliable, carbon-free power is rising. Solar and wind are growing quickly, but they depend on the weather. Geothermal offers a different advantage. It provides steady electricity, day and night.
Fervo’s project shows how this technology is starting to scale. It also highlights a broader shift in clean energy markets. David Ulrey, Chief Financial Officer at Fervo Energy, said:
“Non-recourse financing has historically been considered out of reach for first-of-a-kind projects. Cape Station disrupts that narrative. With proven oil and gas technology paired with AI-enabled drilling and exploration, robust commercial offtake, operational consistency, and an unrelenting focus on health and safety, we have shown that EGS [enhanced geothermal systems] is a highly bankable asset class.”
A Major Investment in Next-Generation Geothermal
Fervo’s $421 million financing includes a mix of debt and credit support. The package is designed to fund the construction and early operations of the Cape Station project.
RBC Capital Markets is the coordinating lead arranger, working with Barclays, BBVA, and HSBC, with additional support from J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank’s New York branch.
Sean Pollock, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets, remarked:
“As demand for firm, clean, affordable power accelerates, EGS is set to become a core energy asset class for infrastructure lenders. Fervo is pioneering this step change with Cape Station, a vital contribution to American energy security that RBC is proud to support.”
The project is located in Utah and is expected to become one of the largest EGS in the United States. Its initial phases could reach hundreds of megawatts of capacity, with long-term plans to scale up to 2 gigawatts (GW).
Conventional and EGS in the U.S.
This is a significant size. A 1 GW power plant can supply electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes, depending on usage levels. At full build-out, Cape Station could rank among the largest clean energy facilities in the country.
Fervo’s approach uses advanced drilling methods adapted from the oil and gas sector. These techniques allow developers to access deep heat resources that were once too difficult to reach. This expands the potential for geothermal energy beyond traditional locations.
From Niche to Necessary: Geothermal’s Small Share but Large Potential
The United States currently has about 2.7 gigawatts (GW) of conventional geothermal capacity, per the US Energy Information Administration. This is only 0.2% of total U.S. summer generating capacity, which refers to the maximum power available during peak demand in summer.
The potential for EGS is much larger. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 135 GW of power could be developed from EGS in the Great Basin alone.
Other estimates suggest that up to 150 GW of cost-effective geothermal capacity could be built in the coming decades, depending on market conditions and technological progress.
- In 2023, the National Laboratory of the Rockies estimated that about 90 GW of EGS capacity could be economically developed across the United States by 2050.
The small share reflects past limitations. Traditional geothermal projects require natural underground reservoirs of hot water or steam. These are only found in certain regions.
Technology Is Unlocking New Geothermal Resources
However, new technologies are changing that. Enhanced geothermal systems can create artificial reservoirs by injecting water into hot rock formations. This makes geothermal viable in many more areas.
The key to geothermal growth lies in innovation. Traditional geothermal systems are limited by geography. Enhanced systems aim to remove that constraint.
Fervo uses horizontal drilling and hydraulic stimulation. These methods are similar to those used in shale oil and gas production. They allow wells to reach deeper and hotter rock formations.
The company has already tested this approach. Its pilot project, known as Project Red, produced about 3.5 megawatts (MW) of continuous electricity. It also showed strong flow rates, which are critical for long-term performance.
Scaling up from pilot to commercial size is the next step. Cape Station represents that transition. If successful, it could prove that enhanced geothermal systems can operate on a large scale. This would open the door for wider adoption across the United States and other countries.
Why 24/7 Clean Energy Is in High Demand
Electricity demand is rising across the United States and globally. This is driven by electrification, population growth, and new industries.
At the same time, the energy system is shifting toward renewables. Solar and wind are now among the fastest-growing sources of electricity. However, these sources are variable. Solar only produces power during the day. Wind output can change with weather conditions.
This creates a need for stable energy sources that can run at all times. Geothermal meets this need. It provides baseload power, meaning it can operate continuously without interruption.
Other low-carbon baseload options include nuclear and hydropower. Geothermal adds another layer to this group, especially in regions where other options are limited.
As renewable energy expands, the value of steady power is increasing. This trend is driving interest in geothermal projects.
Investment Trends Support Geothermal Growth
Fervo’s funding reflects a broader shift in energy investment. Clean energy technologies are attracting increasing amounts of capital.
The company has raised about $1.5 billion in total funding since its founding in 2017. This includes equity investments and project-level financing.
Government policy is also playing a role. The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act provides tax credits and incentives for clean energy projects, including geothermal. These incentives help reduce project costs and improve returns for investors.
At the same time, utilities and large energy users are seeking long-term clean power contracts. This creates stable revenue streams for projects like Cape Station.
Global energy investment trends show continued growth in renewables, including geothermal. The International Energy Agency reports that clean energy investment is expected to exceed $2 trillion annually in the coming years, with solar leading but other technologies gaining support.
Geothermal is still a small part of this total today. However, its role could expand as the need for reliable clean energy increases, reaching nearly $3 trillion by 2050.
A New Role for Geothermal in the Energy Transition
Fervo’s $421 million project highlights a shift in how energy systems are evolving. The focus is no longer only on adding renewable capacity. It is also about building a stable and balanced grid.
Geothermal can help fill gaps left by solar and wind. It provides continuous, carbon-free electricity that supports grid reliability. This makes it useful for a range of applications, including:
- Powering cities and industrial operations.
- Supporting renewable-heavy grids.
- Reducing dependence on fossil fuel backup.
If enhanced geothermal systems continue to scale, they could become a key part of the clean energy mix. Fervo’s project is still in its early stages, but it represents a broader trend. Energy markets are starting to value not just clean power, but also consistent power.
As this shift continues, geothermal may move from a niche resource to a core component of the energy transition.
- READ MORE: Google Taps Earth’s Heat in 150MW Geothermal Deal with Ormat Technologies to Power Data Centers
The post Fervo Energy’s $421M Breakthrough and The Rise of Geothermal Power for Clean Electricity appeared first on Carbon Credits.
What auditors actually test, where projects actually fail, and the contract clauses that protect you before signature.
The meeting happens about fourteen months after the contract was signed. Your assurance provider has reached the nature-based investment line in your Scope 3 file, and the partner across the table has exactly two questions. How do you know the reductions happened? And how do you know they would not have happened anyway?
The first question is MRV: measurement, reporting, and verification. The second is additionality. Between them, they decide whether your nature-based investment counts, in your inventory, in your disclosure, and in front of your board. Everything else in the project documentation is supporting material for these two answers.
This article walks through what each question actually tests, where projects most commonly fail, what digital MRV has changed (and what it has not), and the contract clauses that protect you. The goal is to give you the diligence framework before you sign, because after the credit issues is the wrong time to discover the answers were weak.
What MRV actually verifies
MRV is the machinery that turns a field intervention into a defensible number. Measurement covers the data: biomass surveys, soil sampling, remote sensing, activity records from participating farms. Reporting covers the translation of that data into claimed reductions under a recognised methodology. Verification covers the independent check: an accredited third party tests the reporting against the methodology and the evidence.
The methodologies live in registries. Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard and the Gold Standard are the two largest for nature-based projects, and each publishes the methodology documents, monitoring requirements, and verification protocols that a project must follow. The ICVCM Assessment Framework now sits above the registries, assessing whole methodologies against the Core Carbon Principles and granting the CCP label to those that pass.
For a buyer, the practical questions are concrete. What is the monitoring frequency, and is it specified in the project design document or left vague? Who is the verifier, how were they selected, and how often do they rotate? What raw data do you, the buyer, get access to, and in what format? A project that answers these in writing is a different procurement than one that answers them in a sales call.
What additionality actually proves
Additionality asks whether the intervention caused the reduction, or whether the reduction would have happened anyway. The test is a counterfactual: what would this landscape, this farm, this forest have done without the project’s money?
Three forms matter in practice. Financial additionality asks whether the project needed the carbon revenue to proceed. Regulatory additionality asks whether the activity was already required by law. Common-practice additionality asks whether the activity is already standard in the region, in which case paying for it buys you nothing the world was not getting for free.
The reason additionality dominates audit conversations is recent history. Research published in 2023, including the Science paper examined at length in our piece on conventional offsets and boardroom credibility, found that a large share of REDD+ credits failed the counterfactual test because baselines were inflated. The market response was a wave of methodology revisions at Verra and the arrival of independent ratings agencies whose entire business is re-testing additionality claims. The Carbon Credit Quality Initiative publishes transparent scoring of methodologies on exactly this dimension, and it is free to consult before you sign anything.
Where projects most commonly fail the test
Five failure modes account for most of the wreckage.
- Inflated baselines. The counterfactual assumes more deforestation, more degradation, or lower yields than the evidence supports. The claimed reduction is the gap between reality and the baseline, so an inflated baseline manufactures reductions from nothing.
- Unaccounted leakage. The project protects one forest and the logging moves to the next valley. The methodology is supposed to net this out; weak projects estimate it optimistically.
- Thin permanence protection. Nature-based carbon can reverse: fire, pest, drought, or a change of landowner. Buffer pools and insurance mechanisms exist for this, but their adequacy varies enormously between projects.
- Attribution and double counting. In supply chain settings, the same reduction can be claimed by the supplier, the buyer, and a credit purchaser unless contracts prevent it. Our Insetting vs Offsetting piece covers the inventory rules; the point here is that the auditor will ask who else is counting this tonne.
- Stale monitoring. Data collected at validation and never refreshed. The IPCC AR6 Working Group III land-sector chapter documents how quickly carbon stocks respond to disturbance; a three-year-old measurement is a historical artifact, not a current claim.
What digital MRV changes, and what it does not
Digital MRV is the genuine improvement in the field. Satellite remote sensing, including the free archives at NASA Earthdata, allows biomass and land-cover change to be monitored continuously rather than at multi-year verification intervals. Soil carbon models calibrated with physical sampling reduce the cost of agricultural measurement. The practical effect is more frequent data at lower cost, which compresses the window in which a problem can hide.
What digital MRV does not change is judgment. Baselines are still human decisions about counterfactuals. Additionality is still an argument, not a measurement. Research groups such as the Oxford Smith School have been clear on this point: better sensors improve the M in MRV, but the integrity questions live in the assumptions, and assumptions need governance, not gadgets.
For a buyer, the test is simple. Ask the provider what is measured by instrument, what is estimated by model, and what is assumed by methodology. A provider who can answer that question crisply understands their own evidence chain. A provider who cannot is selling you their confidence rather than their data.
What to require in your contract
The diligence above converts into five contract clauses.
- Monitoring cadence and buyer data access, specified by dataset and frequency.
- Verifier independence, named accreditation, and rotation terms.
- Baseline revision triggers, so the counterfactual updates when the methodology or the evidence changes.
- Reversal liability and buffer adequacy, with the mechanism named and sized.
- Documentation handover in audit-ready form, so the evidence file your assurance provider needs already exists.
None of these clauses is exotic. All of them are absent from weak contracts, and their absence is the most reliable early signal that the MRV and additionality answers will be weak too.
If you are evaluating a nature-based investment and want the MRV and additionality stress-tested before signature rather than after, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can run that review against any project on your shortlist, and design nature-based supply chain investments where the evidence chain is built audit-first. Schedule a consultation.
Sources and further reading
- ICVCM: Core Carbon Principles Assessment Framework
- Verra: Verified Carbon Standard
- Gold Standard for the Global Goals
- Carbon Credit Quality Initiative: Methodology quality scores
- University of Oxford Smith School: Sustainable finance research
- IPCC AR6 Working Group III, Chapter 7: AFOLU
- NASA Earthdata satellite remote sensing archive
EU Directive: Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (ECGT)
The EU Directive, Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (ECGT), takes effect on September 27, 2026.(1) The goal of ECGT is to protect consumers by ensuring that environmental claims are fair, understandable, and reliable. This regulation does create a new compliance requirement for businesses, but it also provides sustainability and marketing teams with important guidance that helps create consistency in sustainability communications.
Key takeaways
- ECGT takes effect September 27, 2026, and prohibits claims that a product or service has a neutral, reduced, or positive environmental impact based on offsetting alone.
- Named example phrases the regulation prohibits include climate neutral, CO2 neutral certified, carbon positive, climate net zero, climate compensated, reduced climate impact, and limited CO2 footprint.
- ECGT does not want to deter investment in carbon credits. It wants companies to communicate the real benefits of the projects they support instead.
- SBTi’s guidance recommends framing carbon credits as taking responsibility for ongoing emissions, not as making a product or company neutral.
- Voluntary carbon projects deliver real climate progress: reducing super-pollutants, protecting and restoring ecosystems, and supporting communities.
Regarding carbon credits specifically, voluntary carbon projects deliver important climate progress and environmental benefits that provide many talking points for companies. They reduce climate super-pollutants by removing industrial emissions like methane, N2O, HFCs and others. They protect and restore valuable ecosystems and carbon sinks like forests, mangroves and grasslands. They help communities by reducing local pollution, creating employment opportunities, improving access to healthcare, and more.
The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), a global leader in business climate action, concludes that alongside aggressive decarbonization, we should also use high quality carbon credits to take responsibility for our ongoing emissions. SBTi recognizes that carbon credits are important “to help limit temperature overshoot, mitigate transition risks, and support climate solutions.”(2)
ECGT language on carbon offsetting says that they do not want to deter investment in carbon credits. They just want companies to focus on communicating the benefits of the projects they support and avoid claims beyond the scope of carbon credits, which is good for everyone, companies and consumers alike.
The regulation reinforces that carbon credits do not change the sustainability of your products, so carbon credit buyers should not suggest that their products are more sustainable because of carbon credits. Instead, companies need to promote their climate contributions as a way to compensate or take responsibility for their carbon emissions by supporting projects that do great things like reducing global carbon emissions, reducing pollution, preventing deforestation, restoring forests, and more.
ECGT language related to carbon offsetting
The regulation is particularly focused on prohibiting claims, based on offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, that a product or service has a neutral, reduced, or positive impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. These claims are prohibited in all circumstances because they mislead consumers into believing the claim relates to the product itself, or to how it was made and supplied, or into thinking that using the product carries no environmental impact at all.
Named examples of prohibited claims include:
- climate neutral
- CO2 neutral certified
- carbon positive
- climate net zero
- climate compensated
- reduced climate impact
- limited CO2 footprint
These claims are only allowed when they rest on a product’s actual lifecycle impact, not on offsetting emissions outside that product’s value chain, since the two are not equivalent. This prohibition does not stop companies from advertising their investments in environmental initiatives, including carbon credit projects, as long as they present that information in a way that is not misleading and that meets the other requirements of Union law.(1)
SBTi also provides guidance on climate contribution language in its Corporate Net Zero Standard Version 2.0 Draft for Second Public Consultation, November 2025. While the SBTi language is fairly technical, it has a good framework for crafting a climate contribution message.
SBTi Language for Carbon Credits(3)
- Take responsibility for ongoing emissions by delivering mitigation impact contributions
- Carbon credits certify the mitigation outcomes of projects that reduce, avoid, or remove carbon emissions
- Activities that reduce emissions from emission sources not located within the company’s value chain
- Activities that conserve, protect, and enhance natural carbon sinks
- Activities that capture and store carbon in storage pools
SBTi’s draft standard also walks through sample claim language for this kind of contribution. In general, the samples move from a simple percentage statement, to naming a specific verified tonnage tied to that percentage, to a fuller statement that breaks the tonnage into reductions versus removals. Across all three, the framing stays consistent: a company took responsibility for a defined share of its ongoing emissions over a set period, by funding a specific, verified amount of mitigation, achieved through emission reductions or removals.(3)
FAQ: ECGT and Carbon Credit Claims
When does the ECGT directive take effect?
The rules apply across the EU from September 27, 2026, after member states transposed the directive into national law by March 27, 2026.
Does ECGT ban carbon offsetting?
No. It bans specific marketing claims that a product or service is environmentally neutral, reduced impact, or positive based on offsetting. Advertising investment in carbon credit projects themselves is still allowed if it is not misleading.
What phrases does ECGT specifically prohibit?
Named examples include climate neutral, CO2 neutral certified, carbon positive, climate net zero, climate compensated, reduced climate impact, and limited CO2 footprint, when those claims are based on offsetting rather than a product’s actual lifecycle impact.
How should a company describe its carbon credit purchases instead?
SBTi’s guidance recommends stating the specific verified tonnage of emissions reductions or removals funded and describing that as taking responsibility for a defined share of ongoing emissions, rather than claiming the company or product is neutral.
Does this rule apply to company level sustainability claims too?
ECGT is focused on claims about specific products and services in consumer marketing. Broader company level sustainability communication is a separate matter still governed by other existing rules.
While ECGT does add a new compliance burden for businesses, it helps create consistency in sustainability messaging that is important to building confidence in voluntary carbon projects and scaling the industry to help us achieve progress on global carbon emissions.
Disclaimer: Terrapass does not provide legal or regulatory advice. Any interpretation of regulation must be approved by your legal representative.
References:
(1) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2024/825/oj
(2) https://files.sciencebasedtargets.org/production/files/Corporate-Net-Zero-Standard-version-2.pdf
(3) https://files.sciencebasedtargets.org/production/files/CNZS-V2-Second-Consultation-Draft.pdf
The post The EU’s New Green Claims Rules and Carbon Credits appeared first on Terrapass.
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