Project InnerSpace Announces the Launch of Abundance Energy Group, a Public Benefit Corporation Built to Engage Institutional Capital and Oil Majors at Scale in Geothermal Development

Scaled institutional investment and oil major participation are the final frontiers in the push to catalyze exponential growth of geothermal energy by the end of the decade

BOSTON, Nov. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Project InnerSpace, the leading independent non-profit dedicated to the global development of next-generation geothermal energy, has welcomed the Abundance Energy Group, a newly launched for-profit public benefit corporation, into its family of entities focused on catalyzing fast global scale for geothermal energy.

The Abundance Energy Group was formed to address structural gaps in institutional-scale geothermal investment and development through a global market and capital creation campaign modeled after the shale revolution. The public benefit corporation intends to engage investors through a multi-stage portfolio approach designed to align with the risk profiles and investment mandates of a wide variety of institutional investors. The research foundation and financial engineering underlying this new investment vehicle have been under development within a research division of Project InnerSpace since 2022, and are now being licensed by the Abundance Energy Group to execute on the structure. The structure was built to model the deal flow utilized by the oil and gas industry, with the goal of getting oil majors off the sidelines and into the field pursuing geothermal developments directly.

Project InnerSpace is a focused research organization (FRO) advancing science to remove the major barriers that stand in the way of scaled global development of geothermal energy by the end of this decade. In 2022, Project InnerSpace identified lack of institutional engagement in geothermal development as a primary barrier impeding growth. In the years since, research into the failure of financial markets to engage at scale in geothermal development concluded that targeted interventions were required to train capital markets and institutions to invest, including adaptation of financial instruments that are standard in oil and gas development, and development of a system of valuation and standardization for geothermal resource evaluation. Further, a structure to support staged deal flow that is recognizable to both oil majors as developers, and major financial institutions as capital providers, was required to create a robust market and catalyze scaled investment. These instruments and structures have now been developed, and wrapped into a single capital structure and campaign designed so that oil majors may participate as developers, and financial institutions and investors may participate by choosing the path that best fits with their individual risk-and-return profiles.

"Next generation geothermal energy offers near-term terawatt-scale global opportunity; however, the opportunity is not yet fully commercial, despite the immense resource base and recent advancements in the field," said Jamie Beard, Executive Director of Project InnerSpace, and President of the Abundance Energy Group. "The good news is, the largest remaining barrier to growth is structural, not technological. The Abundance Energy Group was launched to take on this final big barrier — the process of training capital markets to invest at scale in geothermal, and to help geothermal projects speak the language of finance."

The financial structure that the Abundance Energy Group will utilize to move deals from exploration to delineation and through development is novel to geothermal, but standard in oil and gas development. Over the past century, oil and gas majors have developed a sophisticated ecosystem of financial mechanisms that allows them to explore developments in new regions while systemically distributing, hedging, and recycling risk. These include joint ventures and working interest arrangements that spread exploration risk across multiple parties; farm-in and farm-out structures that allow entities to acquire or divest exposure at various stages of development; reserves based lending that unlocks debt against proved reserves; futures derivatives markets that hedge commodity price exposure; royalty and streaming structures that monetize future production; and deep seismic and geological data markets that reduce subsurface uncertainty before capital is committed. These instruments work together to make large capital commitments rational at a portfolio level because certain risks can be diversified across projects.

Geothermal currently lacks much of this infrastructure, which has limited the ability of oil and gas capital, and indeed most traditional project finance, to engage in the geothermal context. This set of challenges is often referred to within climate finance circles as the "first-of-a-kind" financing problem, or the "missing middle," and within geothermal circles as "appraisal risk" or "exploration risk." After several years of deep dive analysis, InnerSpace concluded that the solution to management of these risks was to fold them into an investment structure that manages the risk as part of a portfolio, learning from the way that the oil and gas industry manages risk from exploration to development.

The Abundance Energy Group seeks to combine these essential financial instruments and deal flow structures from oil and gas finance into an integrated structure designed to allow a variety of investor types and risk profiles to engage at multi-billion dollar scale. The structure is designed with the goal of supporting the development of several hundred projects globally with a threshold of 500MW or above for each, with a targeted combined generating capacity of 2 terawatts globally in under 20 years. Development phases of the campaign are intended to be led by oil and gas majors, which in turn are expected to provide the speed and scale required for the campaign.

To support the smooth passage of deals through the campaign, and for the benefit of the financial community generally, Project InnerSpace supported the development of the Geothermal Resources Management System (GRMS) over the past year in partnership with the Society of Petroleum Engineers International. The newly developed GRMS is slated to publish this month and will be utilized within the Abundance Energy Group deal structure. Project InnerSpace also supported the development of global capacity and financial models underlying the geothermal development campaign that will be championed by the Abundance Energy Group. These models are now licensed to the Abundance Energy Group, and also being used within the greater Project InnerSpace family of entities to build targeted supportive financial frameworks within state and federal governments, with the first designed incentive for the State of Texas soon to be announced.

To follow future announcements about the Abundance Energy Group team, structure, and projects, visit abundance.energy.

About Abundance Energy Group

Abundance Energy Group is a for-profit public benefit corporation within the Project InnerSpace family of entities, founded to address structural gaps in institutional-scale geothermal investment, and to engage oil majors directly in geothermal development. Learn more at abundance.energy.

About Project InnerSpace

Project InnerSpace is the leading independent non-profit organization dedicated to the global development of geothermal energy. We are a focused research organization, on a mission to remove the major barriers standing in the way of the exponential growth and development of geothermal energy worldwide by 2030. InnerSpace is proudly independent, non-partisan, and technology-agnostic. To learn more about Project InnerSpace, or to become a partner, please visit www.projectinnerspace.org.

This communication is for informational purposes only and provides general information about Abundance Energy Group and its affiliates. Nothing in this communication constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Any offering will be made only by the applicable issuing entity through definitive offering materials and in compliance with applicable law. Investments in Abundance Energy Group are not charitable contributions to Project InnerSpace. Abundance Energy Group is a separate legal entity from Project InnerSpace, and Project InnerSpace does not guarantee any obligations of Abundance Energy Group. Certain individuals, including Jamie Beard, currently hold roles with both Project InnerSpace and Abundance Energy Group, and Abundance Energy Group licenses certain research and models from Project InnerSpace. This communication contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding development, capacity, financing, third-party participation, and the timing of future publications and incentives, which can be identified by words such as "will," "intend," "target," "expect," "goal," and similar expressions. These statements reflect current plans and assumptions and remain subject to resource, development, financing, permitting, regulatory and market risks. Actual results may differ materially, targets are not guaranteed, and no party undertakes any obligation to update these statements.

SOURCE Project InnerSpace