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Electricity has to be produced the instant it is used, which is why the machines that make it matter so much. For decades, a large share of American power has come from burning natural gas, a fuel that is cheap, widely available, and easy to switch on when demand climbs. Gas plants can ramp up quickly and run around the clock, which makes them a dependable backbone for the grid. The catch has always been carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas released when any fossil fuel burns. That tension, between reliable power and cleaner power, sits underneath the story of one company now trying to build its first plant.
That company is NET Power Inc. (NYSE: NPWR), an energy technology and project development firm based in Houston. It spent years developing an unusual process that could generate electricity from natural gas while capturing almost all of the carbon dioxide before it ever reached the air. The idea drew attention and investment, but turning a laboratory concept into a working, financed power plant has proven slow and expensive. NET Power has yet to earn meaningful revenue, and it ended the second quarter of 2026 with roughly $310 million in cash to fund the effort.
Earlier this year the company changed course. Rather than lead with carbon capture, it decided to build natural gas generation first and add the capture equipment in later phases, once customers and financing support it. The reason is demand. Artificial intelligence and the enormous data centers that run it are consuming electricity at a pace utilities are struggling to match, and those customers care most about getting power quickly, reliably, and at scale. NET Power calls this its power-first strategy, and it is meant to capture business now rather than wait for a perfect low-carbon plant.
NET Power announced two agreements that put that plan into motion. The first gives it the exclusive right to acquire about 123 megawatts of new gas-fired power generation equipment. If the deal closes, that equipment would lift the potential capacity of the first phase of Project Permian, the company’s inaugural site in West Texas, to nearly 200 megawatts. To reserve the rights, NET Power paid a $20 million deposit that will count toward the final purchase price, with the balance due as the equipment is manufactured, delivered, and installed. The company expects the purchase to close in the third quarter of 2026.
The second agreement is less obvious but arguably more interesting. NET Power signed a cost reimbursement arrangement with a prospective customer, meaning that a potential buyer of the power has agreed to cover certain approved costs the company runs up while securing the equipment. Neither side is committed to a final energy contract, and the customer is not yet obligated to buy anything. What the arrangement does is share some of NET Power’s upfront risk, and it can serve as collateral to help the company obtain attractive financing for the equipment itself.
For a development-stage company, that combination matters. NET Power’s chief executive, Danny Rice, described the pairing as a practical next step that lets the company secure and deliver more power sooner while keeping financial protections in place. He also called it a template the company hopes to repeat, using the same structure to line up additional generation for early deployment. In other words, the deals are less about the megawatts themselves and more about proving a repeatable way to move from ambition to something a bank will lend against.
None of this guarantees success. The equipment purchase still depends on third-party consents and standard closing conditions, the prospective customer has made no promise to buy the electricity, and the company still needs a final investment decision before construction can begin, a step it expects later in 2026. What the August agreements offer is evidence that NET Power is translating a big idea into concrete commitments, one deposit and one contract at a time, at a moment when the appetite for dependable electricity has rarely been stronger.
