The 21st Century global economy relies on a diverse portfolio of energy sources, including renewable energy, but labor shortages threaten to stifle industry growth. Fervo Energy is well known for being at the forefront of enhanced geothermal systems. Less well known, however, is the company’s role in developing a registered apprenticeship program in rural Southwest Utah.
Southwest Utah is home to abundant, high-quality geothermal resources. Beaver County, the site of Fervo’s first greenfield project, boasts over 5 GWs of geothermal potential alone. In order to scale the resource to its full potential, Fervo has prioritized relationship-building throughout the region, recognizing the importance of long-term local partnerships to deliver transformational clean energy.
Building an enhanced geothermal system requires a diverse workforce, including crews specializing in construction, drilling, completions, workover operations, electrical work, welding, and pipefitting. Fervo has had success contracting local civil construction, welding, and crane operations crews at their Cape Station development but local drilling and completions crews are harder to come by. Most oilfield services contractors recruit from Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, states with robust fossil fuel ecosystems. And although these workers have the experience needed to support Fervo’s operations with no retraining or reskilling, they do not represent or live in the local community.
Developing a talent pipeline in the region was important to Fervo Energy for several reasons. On the one hand, they wanted local communities to prosper because of their investments and wanted to help local residents learn skills for good jobs that would be in demand for years to come. On the other hand, building a local workforce made business sense. Relying on out-of-state crews would be inefficient, driving up costs for travel and housing. That’s why Fervo Energy and their subcontractors agreed that hiring locally would be the best long-term strategy.
Developing a registered apprenticeship program offered a mechanism to build local talent while also allowing small contractors a way to satisfy the requirements of the Inflation Reduction Act and become eligible to work at Cape Station. Instead of shipping in apprentices from other regions, they prioritized local hires so workers could go home to their families at night. Fervo Energy reached out to Southern Utah University (SUU) about developing a registered apprenticeship program to help local residents get the training required for jobs in the industry. Under an earn and learn model, workers earn a good wage that grows as they acquire more skills, and research shows that apprentices are more likely to remain with a company long-term.
Many new renewable energy companies are new to workforce development and aren’t sure where to begin. Fervo Energy was no exception; building the apprenticeship program’s classroom curriculum with SUU was uncharted territory. Fervo Energy, though, viewed themselves as a convener, reaching out to their network of contractors—the primary employers of on-site workers—to better understand their skills and training needs. Several leaned into the process and with the information gathered from this network, Fervo Energy worked with SUU to build a classroom training program that would prepare apprentices for jobs in the industry.
The registered apprenticeship program is just beginning to bear fruit, but Tule Horton who leads this work for Fervo Energy has advice for others who want to develop similar programs. “When building partnerships, nothing is better than meeting with people in-person, and taking the time to really listen and understand the needs of each stakeholder. This is particularly important when a developer breaks ground in a new region where relationships and clear communication pathways do not already exist,” says Tule Horton, Strategy Associate at Fervo Energy. Likewise, they started with the problem first (e.g. needing to develop a talent pipeline) and worked back from there. Instead of coming in with their own ideas, Fervo Energy took time to listen to what their community and business partners needed before they developed a strategy.
Industry sector partnerships and registered apprenticeship programs have long been recognized as important workforce development strategies. Fervo Energy shows how a committed company that is new to skills training can use these tools to develop workforce solutions that benefit the company, workers, and communities.