The Exchanges

Q plant in a wildly fast amount of time. You basically, you mentioned that you essentially went from funding the project to completing the project in 12 months. So can you say a bit about that journey and what it was like? Did you have a thousand people working around the clock to make this construction happen in that time frame, or what was your secret to making it all work?

A We were actually able to build and commission that facility in 13 months. That's from funding to actually being ready to store power. We're now just waiting on the grid interconnection to actually operate that facility. We were very focused. We wanted, um, of course, to get, you know, as a startup company, you know, what you want to do is move as quickly as you can to building that first commercial facility. So we knew the, you know, first commercial facility would be very important for us. Um, and, and so, uh, You know, we had already thought about and worked what the, you know, basically the pre-feed engineering, so designing the well, designing the power plant, designing the equipment. So once we got funding, we were able to, um, basically finalize that design, work with an EPC to make sure that, you know, all the details were worked out, and then, of course, we needed to order the longlead equipment. And so, some of the long lead equipment that we were kind of worried about were kind of transformers, not really Equipment special to what we were doing, but still equipment that, you know, had a long, a longer lead. One of the, one of the pieces of equipment that we had to re-engineer was actually the Pelton turbine. The Pelton turbines that are out there in the industry for pump storage hydropower are not rated to the same pressure as our Pelton turbine, so our Pelton turbine…

AI assessment note: “we had already thought about and worked what the, you know, basically the pre-feed engineering”

Q And then in terms of the duration of the energy storage that you're getting, can you essentially put a lid on this and wait almost as long as you want? Like, would this work for seasonal storage in the United States, or is there kind of like a decay time to how much you're able to use the storage when it's under pressure like that?

A Laura, that's a great question. So we're, we're targeting a low permeability rock So there, the permeability measure is millidarces, so we want 50 millidarces or less. Um, we can definitely store the water for a long time, as you said, for seasonal storage, if there's a market for that. Um, the, the lower the permeability is, the lower the kind of leak off is in the subsurface. So, um, We have seen some rock that lose, like, actually, you'll see the pressure start to increase because you're shut in, and what's happening is that water gets heated and starts to expand, um, but you, you, if you, say you, you're in a 40 to 50 millidarcy rock, you may have some leakage into the rock, uh, matrix, which means that you would have, um, a pump system at the surface monitoring the pressure, um, Where you could add water as that pump, as that pressure declines. So yes, we can literally store the water for weeks, if not months, um, you know, and we would just monitor the pressure depending on the formation permeability. We may have to have, uh, water added occasionally to keep the pressure up, but in some formations, like I said, we've seen, we have seen, um, Like, literally no leak off. Um, so, so yes, we can definitely do the, the longer, uh, storage, um, durations, um, with this technology.

AI assessment note: “we can definitely store the water for a long time, as you said, for seasonal storage”

Q So how do you think about working with a big, really well-established company like that? Because I know that it can be challenging sometimes, right? Like there's a very stark power dynamic between a small startup and the world's Largest, most established geothermal company. So, how have you, how have you worked that out?

A Yeah, actually, to be honest with you, like, one of our, uh, or a couple of our team members are actually, um, in Reno today visiting with Ormat, because we're still, uh, deciding what location that we're going to build this first, um, power, uh, power generation, uh, project at. But Ormat has a lot of, um, They, they are bigger than us, obviously, huge, um, but they have the resources also that, that are very complementary to us. I mean, we have the skill set, we have the very niche skills for what, what, what our technology is, but they've got a lot more people, they've got, you know, proper subsurface, um, departments, and as we grow as a company, we will build those, but they already have them in place, so they have, you know, geologists and subsurface people and drilling engineers, And so, um, when we are talking to them about, you know, building a product, this joint project, you know, we're actually also gonna be able to leverage some of their relationships that they have with, uh, contractors. So, I think, uh, I think the, the relationship is a good one. It's something that is beneficial to, to Sage. Very much like when, uh, Chesapeake, um, invested in Sage's Series A, um, Um, Chesapeake, which is now Expand Energy, they, they were actually very helpful in our energy storage facility at SMECI because they have drilling operations in the area, so we were able to, and, an…

AI assessment note: “they have the resources also that, that are very complementary to us.”

Q We'll dig deeper on how oil and gas technologies are helping advance clean geothermal power, and take a look at Sage Geosystems' upcoming partnership with geothermal giant Ormot after the break. Did you have, like, an aha moment when there was something specific that got your attention and made you realize that geothermal was in a very different spot than it had been previously?

A Yeah, I, I would say it was when my partners, Levering and Lance Cook, reached out and said, you need to come join us. We're going to pursue geothermal, and I figured because these guys had invented technology for the oil and gas industry for years, technology, quite frankly, that people told them were, was impossible, and, and technology that still exists, You know, being used in the oil and gas industry, so I figured if anybody could figure out how to kind of crack the nut on geothermal, it would be these, these two guys, and so I got on a call with them, and they explained what they were doing, and what some of their thought processes were, and that's, that's the, that's what convinced me that, you know, there, there's a playground here that basically, it's a huge resource, And so the playground is, is just exciting because, you know, the company or companies that crack the nut on this are gonna have a huge resource to go after, and, and, and quite frankly, as we talked about earlier, it's, it's, you know, in a lot of areas right under your feet, so what an, what an exciting opportunity.

AI assessment note: “it was when my partners, Levering and Lance Cook, reached out and said”

Q I talked with Cindy about her journey from the oil and gas world into geothermal. And how Sage Geosystems is flipping the script on traditional pumped hydro. We started the conversation, though, discussing their first commercial-scale energy facility. Say a bit about the size of the project. So is a 410 megawatt coal plant, is the solar plant about the same size, and how much storage are you providing?

A Currently, with SMECI, we are leasing land from them, so we're not involved with their first phase of solar, which is under a USDA loan, because they had To basically choose a storage technology that was, um, proven, which lithium ion batteries. However, if you think about a coal plant that's producing 400, I think they're rated at 410 megawatts, you know, 24 hours a day, 400 megawatts of solar, um, is only gonna achieve about, um, what, a third of what they're producing, because it only, uh, Produces for eight hours a day. So the USDA loan is for this first tranche of 400 megawatts, but what they plan on doing is scaling after that in order to backfill the rest of the power capacity that they need to replace the coal plant. And so, although we're not in tranche one, we are built in an area where they plan to expand that solar, um, build in, in the field. And they own about 12,000 acres, so we're basically set up For that next tranche of solar that's going to be built.

AI assessment note: “although we're not in tranche one, we are built in an area where they plan”

Q permission to connect to the grid. Can you say a bit about when you felt like it was the right time to submit your request for grid interconnection? Like how far How far were you on this project, and how sure were you you were going to build it, and would you have done anything differently, given that now you're waiting, going on a year, for this interconnection to happen?

A Yeah, when I, when I talked about the long lead equipment, uh, grid interconnection was one of the first things that we kicked off. Of course, what you have to do is you have to, uh, basically apply for a grid interconnection feasibility study. What I found, Laura, is the challenge with the grid, it's a very linear process, and, and I appreciate the caution and, um, the need, especially with new technology to, you know, make sure that, you know, when you put it on the grid, it doesn't basically shut the grid down in one way or another. However, I think the process could just be Um, when I think about oil and gas processes, we do a lot of things in parallel. You know, we're trying to knock down, knock out cost. We're trying to be more efficient. A lot of things are done in parallel to the point where you may be drilling a well, um, adjacent to a well that you're actually doing other work on, right? But in the, in the grid interconnection process, it's very linear. So you do the feasibility study, and you know, kind of They have their, their linear process, and so it's just very slow, and the, the thing is, I, I'm told, and I know it's true, that in Texas, on the ERCOT grid, the process is actually faster than it is on other, um, you know, grids around the country, and so, um, and it's still, the feasibility study, in the beginning, we were said, told it, it'll take six weeks, An…

AI assessment note: “grid interconnection was one of the first things that we kicked off.”