How a Texas gas producer plans to exploit the ‘megatrend’ of power plants for AI hyperscalers

Four years ago, BKV started buying up the two Temple power plants in Texas—located between Austin and Dallas—which now total 1.5 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity—enough to power more than 1.1 million homes, or a major data center campus. There is room to expand. (Credit: Courtesy of BKV Corp.)

After natural gas producer BKV expanded into the power business, the company went on its IPO road show two years ago and was met with suspicion and ridicule about its then unusual business model. It’s rare—and uncomfortable for shareholders—for oil and gas producers to take over power plants that require very different skill sets. They’re both hydrocarbon industries, but drilling and extracting from the earth and producing electricity require completely different business models and technologies.

“I went to a very large institutional investor and explained our gas-to-power strategy in our business, and I got berated for like 30 minutes about how it was such a foolish thing for me to go into power,” BKV founder and CEO Chris Kalnin told Fortune.