Calpine

Calpine Corporation is the largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal resources in the United States,[2] with operations in competitive power markets.

A Fortune 500 company based in Houston, Texas,[1] the company is owned by an affiliate of Energy Capital Partners and a consortium of other investors, including Access Industries Inc. and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.[3]

Through wholesale power operations and its retail businesses, Calpine serves customers in 23 states, Canada and Mexico.[4]

As of March 2018, the directors of Calpine are CEO Thad Hill; Executive Vice Chairman Thad Miller; Tyler Reeder, Douglas Kimmelman, Andrew Singer and Andrew Gilbert of Energy Capital Partners; and Donald Wagner of Access Industries, Inc. The executive leadership team includes President/CEO Thad Hill, EVP/Chief Legal Officer Thad Miller, EVP/Chief Financial Officer Zamir Rauf, EVP/Power Operations Charlie Gates and EVPs of Commercial Operations Andrew Novotny and Caleb Stephenson.

Its fleet of 78 power plants in operation or under construction represents nearly 26,000 megawatts of generation capacity.[5]

In response to the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, much legislation was passed that made domestic energy production an attractive enterprise. In 1984, Peter Cartwright and four of his co-workers, the Guy F. Atkinson Construction Company of South San Francisco, and the Electrowatt corporation struck an investment arrangement, and Calpine was born with initial capital of US$1 million. It was essentially a Silicon Valley startup company. The name "Calpine" is derived from the company's original California location and alpine, a reference to the Zürich home base of Electrowatt. Calpine is the largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal resources in the United States.