Questions,
Answered

Not yet — and we're upfront about that. Fifty Under is a brand-new organization, and as far as we know, the first to bring geothermal to agriculture specifically to decarbonize it. As a company, we haven't built our own projects yet. But our internal team and our network of partners have evaluated and built hundreds — likely thousands — of relevant renewable and geothermal projects. We're just getting started.

A lot of the risk of working with a young company is taken off the table by the Geothermal-as-a-Service model itself: we're the ones putting up the capital and cutting the check. And we will never ask a partner or customer to carry risk they aren't prepared for. If we're a little early for you, no problem — keep checking in. We're ready to talk when you are.

No. This is ground-source geothermal for heating, cooling, and dehumidification — moving the earth's steady, shallow heat. When people say "geothermal power," they mean generating electricity from deep, hot reservoirs, which is a riskier proposition and simply not something we're prepared to offer at this time. We do the proven, shallow kind.

We serve farms across North America — the United States and Canada. If you're not sure whether your region fits, reach out — the ground holds a steady, useful temperature almost everywhere, and we can tell you quickly whether your site works.

Canadian operations sit differently on the economics. There is no REAP equivalent north of the border, but carbon pricing on natural gas is a recurring cost that climbs on a published schedule — so the value of moving off combustion grows every year instead of holding flat. For growers in places like Leamington, that shifts the calculation meaningfully.

A fair question for any young company, and one we take seriously. The system is yours to keep benefiting from regardless — geothermal infrastructure is built to run for decades — and the agreements and operating arrangements are structured so your service continues even if the company changes hands. Our whole model is about removing risk from your side of the table; that includes this.

The Renewable Energy Fee is the single monthly fee our customers pay for the heating, cooling, and dehumidification service we deliver. It's designed to cover all of our costs to provide those services — the system, its operation, and its upkeep — rolled into one line.

The REF is fixed, sometimes with a set inflator to account for inflation. Either way, you know what you'll pay years out: no fuel-market spikes, no surprise bills — the savings we capture are embedded in the rate itself.

We fund the capital cost of the installation — typically millions of dollars — so you don't put that money in. That's the heart of Geothermal-as-a-Service.

The one thing we do sometimes share with you is a portion of the third-party cost of evaluating your opportunity up front. We ask for that for two reasons: it keeps us aligned from day one, and, frankly, interest right now is overwhelming — a shared evaluation cost helps us prioritize the operators who are genuinely ready to move.

Usually, yes — and we'll show you, not just tell you. The Renewable Energy Fee is built to compete with what you pay today all-in, and because it's fixed while fuel prices climb and spike, the advantage tends to grow over the life of the agreement.

On the projects we model, signing up comes out ahead on a total-cost basis while also freeing your capital and shedding the risk. In our first conversations we'll map your operation's two paths — build it yourself versus GaaS — side by side, with your numbers.

The systems we build qualify for real incentives. At the federal level, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBBA) preserved the investment tax credit for geothermal on a long runway — even as it phased out the credits for wind and solar — which makes ground-source heat pumps one of the few farm-ready ways to decarbonize that still carry durable federal support. On top of that, there are often state and local programs that add to the benefit.

The catch is that these incentives are complicated to qualify for and manage, and the rules keep moving. If you'd prefer to handle that process yourself, you can. But our recommendation is to let us do it — we capture and administer the incentives, and the benefit flows straight back to you as a lower monthly Renewable Energy Fee (REF).

Either way, we'll always be upfront about the lay of the land so you understand your options and can make an informed choice.

This is the right question to ask, and the honest answer is that it changes. Today your boiler flue gives you CO₂ as a free by-product of burning fuel for heat. Take the combustion off your site and that free stream goes with it, so enrichment becomes a purchased input — typically delivered liquid CO₂.

We don't paper over that. When we model your project, the cost of purchased CO₂ goes into the comparison, so the number you're weighing is the true net position and not a heating figure that quietly ignores an input you used to get for nothing. Plenty of operations still come out ahead once the fuel volatility, the maintenance, and the capital are all on the same page — but you should see that math, not take our word for it.

It's also worth knowing that combined heat and power is the usual alternative for keeping on-site CO₂, and it carries its own load: fuel supply exposure, a heavier maintenance burden, and capture equipment to manage. Simple, combustion-free baseload heat plus purchased CO₂ is often the cleaner trade.

Geothermal is long-lived infrastructure, so the agreement is a long-term one — think in terms of the multi-decade life of the system, not a year or two. That's exactly what lets us put up the capital and hold your price steady. We set the specific term with you, and the end-of-term options (below) are part of that conversation.

As a rule of thumb, if your anticipated energy bill is less than a few hundred thousand dollars a year, we're probably not the best fit. If you're below that scale, we're glad to point you toward others who may be better able to help — just ask.

Not much to begin. The first step is a conversation and a look at your energy use and operation; from there we run an evaluation, and if it's a fit we move into design. We'll tell you exactly what we need at each stage — and we aim to give you a clear read early, so you're not investing time in something that won't pencil.

Typically 18 to 24 months from the first conversation — covering evaluation, design, permitting, construction, and commissioning. We're happy to map that timeline out with you in the first few discussions, so you know what to expect at each step.

Less than most people expect. Where land is tight we use vertical bores that go straight down and leave the surface almost untouched; where there's room, shallower horizontal trenches can lower drilling cost. We plan the work around your operation to keep disruption to a minimum, and we'll walk you through exactly what installation looks like on your site before anything starts.

Then it's on us — not you. We design and operate these systems for a living, and we're comfortable standing behind their performance. Because Fifty Under builds, owns, and operates the system, its performance is our responsibility, full stop.

If a system doesn't deliver what we agreed to, there are protections built into every agreement so you're kept whole: miss the performance metrics laid out in the contract, and you're relieved of some or all of your payment obligations for that shortfall. You keep your operation running; we carry the risk of making it right.

Frankly, we don't expect it to come to that — right-sizing and expert design are exactly what we do, and it's why the numbers work. But you shouldn't have to take our confidence on faith, so we put it in writing.

Often, yes — and by design. We size the geothermal to carry the vast majority of your annual energy, and where it makes sense we pair it with a small backup burner to cover the handful of extreme-cold hours a year. It's called a bivalent system, and it's the most cost-effective way to make sure you're never short on the night your operation can't afford it.

We do — all of it. Because we own and operate the system, monitoring, maintenance, and repairs are our job, not yours. We watch performance remotely and respond when something needs attention, so keeping the climate right is one less thing on your plate.

A real one. Switching from combustion to ground-source geothermal cuts your climate footprint from day one, and the gap grows as the electricity grid gets cleaner. That's a story you can tell your buyers, lenders, and community — and we'll give you the numbers behind it, so your sustainability claims are grounded in something real.

Growth is a good problem, and we'd rather plan for it than be surprised by it. Tell us where you're headed and we'll design with that in mind — and when you expand, we can size the next phase to match. It's another reason the first conversations matter: the more we know about your plans, the better the system fits over time.

The system and the agreement are tied to the operation, and in most cases the agreement can transfer to a new owner — a working, fixed-price climate system is an asset a buyer inherits, not a liability. We'll walk through exactly how that works for your situation as part of the contract.

There are several options — various ownership or purchase arrangements — and they're all worked out between us as part of the agreement. The whole process is designed to deliver fixed-price energy and real value to you; working through the contract is where we settle those end-of-term choices together.