Editor's note: In our 2024 Startups to Watch feature, the Silicon Valley Business Journal and San Francisco Business Times present startups and founders building groundbreaking products and companies in the Bay Area. Earthgrid is one of 17 we profiled this year — to read more about our mission and the other startups we're featuring, click here.
Former "American Ninja Warrior" contestant Troy Helming is operating Earthgrid out of the same building as his obstacle-course training studio. The company is building machines that can bore into the earth, distinguishing itself from its Elon Musk-owned rival by using plasma rods as its primary tool to break through tough rocks. Its focus at the moment is to facilitate drilling for renewable energy projects.
About Earthgrid
Founded: 2016
Founders: Troy Helming
HQ: Richmond
Employees: 30
Total funding: $50 million
What problem is Earthgrid trying to solve in the energy industry?
Troy Helming: Earthgrid aims to solve the major issue that 80% of renewable energy projects get cancelled before construction due to lack of transmission capacity or high interconnection costs. Our tunnelling technology provides a faster, cheaper way to bury power, fiber optic, and other utility lines to facilitate more renewable energy projects.
How does Earthgrid's tunnel boring technology work?
Helming: Earthgrid uses plasma torches that generate 20,000-degree heat to melt through rock. Our current machine has plasma torches mounted like lightsabers on the front that essentially vaporize through soil and rock as the machine moves forward that allows tunnel boring up to 1 kilometer a day.
How did you come up with the idea to use plasma for tunneling?
Helming: In 2016, we had a contract with my solar company Pristine Sun. We had a contract with PG&E to build a solar farm and after a couple of years of doing the grid studies, we had to downsize it by 75% to be able to connect to the grid affordably, we had to go underneath three kilometers of wetlands and then we could have connected it to a beefier part of the grid and build up the full size of the project.
So we're drowning our tears over beers in San Francisco and one of my solar engineers at the time was a former Navy SEAL. He's bragging to his girlfriend about using a plasma cutting torch to go underwater and practice entering enemy ships by cutting through the side of the ship. And he's like, 'Yeah, this can take your arm off.'
Anyway that night, I popped up out of bed and thought, Plasma is really hot, could that go through rock?' And because I've built hundreds of small tunnels and trenches to bury fiber and power lines for infrastructure projects and substations over the decades, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I hired an engineering firm to do a feasibility study a few months later and they came back and said, 'Yes, this will work and no one is doing this.'
What is Earthgrid's business model and future plans?
Helming: Rather than selling the technology, we operate via two business models — "Build, Own, Operate and Maintain" (BOOM) where we own the tunnels, and "Boring and Drilling as a Simple Service" (BADASS) where we create tunnels for clients. We are currently focused on 2.5-meter-diameter utility tunnels and plan initial field testing of a full commercial tunnel boring machine in the summer 2024.
