Climate tech companies are going public. What’s next?
Climate tech companies are going public. What’s next?
气候科技公司纷纷上市，接下来会发生什么？
This year, there’s been a wave of notable energy companies going public via IPO in the US. The solar and battery company Solv Energy went public in February, to the tune of $6 billion. X-energy, which is building small modular nuclear reactors, did the same in April, and its stocks surged on its first day of trading to hit a $11.5 billion market cap. Most recently, the geothermal company Fervo Energy went public in mid-May, and its market cap is now about $12.4 billion. 今年，美国出现了一波知名能源公司通过首次公开募股（IPO）上市的热潮。太阳能和电池公司 Solv Energy 于 2 月上市，估值达 60 亿美元。正在建造小型模块化核反应堆的 X-energy 公司于 4 月紧随其后，其股价在首个交易日飙升，市值达到 115 亿美元。最近，地热公司 Fervo Energy 也于 5 月中旬上市，目前市值约为 124 亿美元。
Those are all success stories in the IPO world. And it certainly doesn’t feel like a coincidence that all these companies are racing to provide electricity in an era of rising demand (partly due to data centers). Let’s take a look at how these firms are doing, what this moment says about the grid, and what’s coming next. 这些都是 IPO 界的成功案例。在电力需求不断增长（部分归因于数据中心）的时代，这些公司竞相提供电力，这绝非巧合。让我们来看看这些公司的表现，这一时刻对电网意味着什么，以及未来会有什么发展。
Let’s start with Fervo Energy, a company we’ve covered a lot over the years that’s working to develop enhanced geothermal energy. (We included it on our 2025 list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch.) While conventional geothermal requires finding specific spots with hot rock, water, and fractures to support a power plant, Fervo essentially uses fracking techniques to create the necessary conditions. The company was founded in 2017, and it raised about $1.5 billion from investors over the years before its IPO. 首先从 Fervo Energy 说起，这是我们多年来重点报道的一家致力于开发增强型地热能的公司。（我们将其列入了 2025 年值得关注的气候科技公司名单。）传统地热能需要寻找具备热岩、水和裂缝的特定地点来支撑发电厂，而 Fervo 本质上是利用水力压裂技术来创造必要的条件。该公司成立于 2017 年，在 IPO 之前，多年来已从投资者那里筹集了约 15 亿美元。
Fervo’s first commercial project, Cape Station in Utah, is expected to have a capacity of about 500 megawatts. The first unit is set to start generating power for customers by October and the next two units by January 2027. The new funding from the IPO could help the company scale. Fervo currently has over 600 megawatts’ worth of binding power purchase agreements. And it has leases for land that could together generate more than 40 gigawatts of electricity. (As of 2024, the entire US geothermal fleet had a capacity of just 4 gigawatts.) Fervo 的首个商业项目——位于犹他州的 Cape Station，预计装机容量约为 500 兆瓦。第一台机组计划于 10 月开始为客户供电，接下来的两台机组将于 2027 年 1 月投入使用。IPO 筹集的新资金将有助于公司扩大规模。Fervo 目前拥有超过 600 兆瓦的约束性购电协议，并拥有可共同产生超过 40 吉瓦电力的土地租赁权。（截至 2024 年，美国整个地热发电装机容量仅为 4 吉瓦。）
The company also has an eye on cutting construction and drilling costs—its Cape Station plant is expected to cost about $7 per kilowatt, which is cheaper than new nuclear power plants but over twice the expense of building a new natural-gas plant in the US. 该公司还着眼于降低建设和钻探成本——其 Cape Station 电厂的成本预计约为每千瓦 7 美元，这比新建核电站便宜，但仍是美国新建天然气发电厂成本的两倍多。
X-energy also aims to provide reliable clean power: it’s part of the wave of next-generation nuclear companies working on small modular reactors. The company is building high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, which flow helium over self-contained pebbles of nuclear fuel. These reactors will each generate 80 megawatts of electricity, less than one-tenth the output of larger ones like Unit 4 at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, the most recent addition to the commercial nuclear fleet in the US. X-energy 也旨在提供可靠的清洁能源：它是致力于小型模块化反应堆的下一代核能公司浪潮中的一员。该公司正在建造高温气冷堆，通过让氦气流过自包含的核燃料球来运行。这些反应堆每台将产生 80 兆瓦的电力，不到佐治亚州沃格特勒（Vogtle）电厂 4 号机组（美国商业核电站的最新成员）等大型反应堆产量的十分之一。
X-energy also saw its IPO go well, and prices surged in trading after the initial offering. One interesting tidbit here—the company had previously planned to go public in 2023 but decided against it because of difficult market conditions. The company is still years away from demonstrating its technology in a commercial project. You may recall a story I wrote last year about its effort to build nuclear reactors at the site of a Dow Chemical plant in Texas. The company recently received a key environmental approval for that project, though it’s still waiting for the final green light from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to start construction. X-energy 的 IPO 也进展顺利，股价在首次发行后大幅上涨。这里有一个有趣的细节——该公司此前曾计划在 2023 年上市，但由于市场环境困难而放弃了。该公司距离在商业项目中验证其技术还有数年时间。你可能还记得我去年写过的一篇关于它试图在德克萨斯州陶氏化学工厂旧址建造核反应堆的报道。该公司最近获得了该项目的关键环境审批，尽管仍在等待核管理委员会（NRC）的最终批准以开始施工。
Finally, Solv Energy builds solar and energy storage projects, mostly for utilities and independent power producers. Solar and batteries are some of the cheapest and easiest technologies to add to the grid, so this one could get a lot of capacity online, quickly. The company already has 21 gigawatts’ worth of projects operational across 35 states. 最后，Solv Energy 主要为公用事业公司和独立发电商建设太阳能和储能项目。太阳能和电池是电网中最便宜、最容易添加的技术之一，因此该公司可以迅速上线大量产能。该公司目前在 35 个州拥有 21 吉瓦的在运项目。
Many companies in the energy sector are pinning their hopes on the rapid growth in data center construction and operation. The AI boom has transformed the energy landscape, pushing electricity demand higher in a country where it’s been relatively flat for the last decade or so. Solv Energy mentioned data centers over a dozen times in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission before its IPO. 能源行业的许多公司都将希望寄托在数据中心建设和运营的快速增长上。人工智能的繁荣改变了能源格局，推高了电力需求，而在这个国家，电力需求在过去十年左右一直相对平稳。Solv Energy 在 IPO 前提交给美国证券交易委员会的文件中，十多次提到了数据中心。
And Fervo and X-energy are particularly connected to the tech giants driving AI. Google has been a longtime investor in Fervo and also pioneered what it calls its clean transition tariff with the company. Amazon is a client of X-energy as well as an investor; it reportedly owns close to 20% of the company. Fervo 和 X-energy 与推动人工智能发展的科技巨头联系尤为紧密。谷歌一直是 Fervo 的长期投资者，并与该公司共同开创了所谓的“清洁转型关税”。亚马逊既是 X-energy 的客户，也是其投资者；据报道，亚马逊持有该公司近 20% 的股份。
Fervo and X-energy are also in industries that occupy a political sweet spot. President Trump and his administration have gone after wind power and other renewables, cutting off existing support and slowing approvals for new projects. Meanwhile, geothermal and particularly nuclear power have kept favor with the federal government and enjoyed continued tax credits and grant funding. Fervo 和 X-energy 所处的行业也占据了政治上的“甜蜜点”。特朗普总统及其政府一直针对风能和其他可再生能源，削减了现有支持并放缓了新项目的审批。与此同时，地热能，尤其是核能，一直受到联邦政府的青睐，并持续享受税收抵免和拨款资助。
If a few big leaders cash through these IPOs, it could help investors feel more confident about supporting the energy sector, even if that money is concentrated in later-stage ventures like these rather than earlier-stage companies. We could see other firms, particularly in nuclear and geothermal, attempt a similar route in the year ahead. 如果几家行业领头羊通过这些 IPO 成功变现，可能会增强投资者支持能源行业的信心，即使这些资金集中在像这样处于后期阶段的企业，而不是早期阶段的公司。我们可能会看到其他公司，特别是在核能和地热领域，在未来一年尝试类似的路径。
A key thing to watch here will be whether Fervo and X-energy in particular can succeed in scaling up and deploying their technology. If either of these companies stumbles or misses a timeline, it could have ripple effects for those hoping to follow in these very lucrative footsteps. 这里需要关注的关键点是，Fervo 和 X-energy 是否能够成功扩大规模并部署其技术。如果这两家公司中的任何一家出现失误或错过时间表，可能会对那些希望追随这些利润丰厚足迹的公司产生连锁反应。