Parker Meeks, CEO & President, Utility Global

Invest: sat down with Parker Meeks, CEO and president of Utility Global, to discuss how the company accelerated from technology validation to early commercialization in 2025 and what comes next as Utility Global scales globally. “Decarbonization can happen economically. It must make sense financially to customers and markets,” Meeks said.

What changes over the past year have most impacted Utility Global, and how are they shaping your current growth strategy?

2025 was a transformational year for Utility Global. I joined as CEO in February, stepping into a company that had already made significant strides advancing a technology well-suited for heavy industry and hard-to-abate sectors like steel, refining, and petrochemicals.

The major shift was moving from technology validation to commercialization. That meant maturing the company across leadership, operations, engineering, and commercial execution to bring the technology to market, starting with steel.

We signed our first steel contract with ArcelorMittal in Brazil, which was a major milestone. Having a global steel leader move forward with us commercially validated both our technology and our readiness. In parallel, we progressed with several other leading steel companies and expect additional contract announcements soon.

We also advanced biogas-to-hydrogen, securing our first U.S. contract with Maas Energy Works, a leading dairy digester developer. That project represents our first commercial biogas deployment, enabling hydrogen production at a price point that supports fuel cell trucks, buses, and other applications.

We also expanded into refining and petrochemicals. We brought on Eric Duchesne, former CTO of the downstream business at TotalEnergies, as a senior board advisor, advancing our value proposition in that space. Similar to steel, we take off gases from existing assets, produce hydrogen for reuse on site, and deliver a high-purity CO2 stream, enabling decarbonization with an attractive cost structure. At scale, we believe we can approach gray hydrogen pricing for the hydrogen we produce while also delivering a decarbonized solution through an up to 98% pure CO2 stream that our H2Gen platform can produce at the same time. That is a powerful economic value proposition.

Operationally, we continued to mature the technology and strengthened leadership with the addition of COO Derek Kramer, former COO of Archaea. He brings direct experience scaling technology-led energy platforms through commercialization and has already had a significant impact on advancing engineering, manufacturing, and execution.

We exited 2025 with signed projects, an advancing global pipeline, improved operational readiness, and our Frontier Project in Houston, a 24/7 operations-enabled reactor supporting continued technology development. We enter 2026 positioned for first revenue and accelerated growth in our core markets across Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

How does being based in Houston support your operations and global partnerships?

Houston is the energy capital of the world. It brings together conventional and new energy, and for a company like ours, the surrounding ecosystem matters. We rely on partners, customers, and suppliers across the value chain.

Many of our largest potential customers operate major facilities or maintain headquarters here, particularly in refining, chemicals, and industrial energy. Houston is also home to biogas asset owners, EPC firms, and supply chain partners critical to building and deploying our facilities.

Equally important is the workforce. Houston has deep engineering talent, especially in industrial gas, process engineering, and manufacturing. This is a region that has built every kind of industrial asset imaginable, and that experience directly supports our growth.

It is also a business-friendly environment at both the city and state levels, which supports permitting, operations, and long-term scaling. Our investors and partners are here as well, reinforcing Houston as a natural hub for our commercial and operational growth.

How do you decide which sectors and regions to prioritize as you scale?

We are disciplined in how we prioritize. Our opportunities span refining and petrochemicals, steel, and biogas across Asia, North America, South America, and Europe. The key is focusing on where our value proposition is strongest.

We evaluate where our technology can deliver economic decarbonization without changing the cost of steel, refined products, or other outputs. We work closely with customers early on to study asset-level economics, footprint, and total project cost so we can identify where we have the highest probability of success.

As we have matured, our project development cycles have shortened significantly. Early projects took nearly two years to advance; today, we can often move from initial engagement to agreement in six to 12 months because we know where to focus.

Our core technology also supports scalability. The ceramic tubular cell at the heart of our system functions similarly regardless of whether it serves a steel plant or refinery once the gas is pre-treated. That commonality allows us to scale manufacturing efficiently while serving multiple markets.

How are regulatory and policy shifts influencing your business?

Regulatory uncertainty was a major factor in early 2025. Shifting policies and trade dynamics created hesitation across industries, including among customers evaluating new technologies.

Fortunately, the environment has stabilized in the markets we are focused on, including Brazil, India, Japan, South Korea, and much of Europe. Our projects are not materially impacted by tariffs or trade restrictions in those regions, given that much of our supply chain and modular project installation can be delivered regionally.

While decarbonization momentum in the U.S. has slowed at the federal level, state-driven opportunities remain, particularly in biogas on the West Coast. Overall, our near-term opportunity set is more international, and we are prioritizing markets where customers have a long-term commitment to economically driven decarbonization.

What talent are you focused on adding as the company grows?

People are central to our success. At this stage, technical talent is the top priority, particularly engineers across disciplines with experience in industrial gas and large-scale infrastructure.

Houston offers an exceptional talent pool, from early-career engineers to experienced leaders. We are materially expanding our engineering and manufacturing teams in 2026 in line with commercial project timelines. Our core technology is manufactured in Houston today, and we will continue to build that capability as demand grows.

Other functions, such as finance and business development, will scale more gradually, but Houston provides access to all of those skill sets as well.

Are there plans to expand manufacturing beyond Houston?

Yes. Today, we produce approximately 50,000 cells per year in Houston, supporting our initial wave of projects. As we scale, third-party manufacturing is central to our strategy.

We have partnered with Kyocera, a global leader in ceramics manufacturing. Our first Kyocera-supported manufacturing site will be in North Carolina and is expected to come online later this year. Future expansion could occur in Houston, elsewhere in the United States, or internationally. Our modular manufacturing approach allows us to align capacity with project demand.

What differentiates Utility Global from other hydrogen or carbon capture companies?

Our differentiation lies in integration. Many technologies require new assets and significant new power input. We integrate into existing industrial assets, using off-gases that are typically low in value.

From a single source, we produce two value streams: hydrogen and a high-purity CO2 stream. We split water without external electricity, unlike conventional electrolysis, and in some cases generate excess power for the host facility.

This results in a smaller footprint, lower cost, and the ability to approach gray hydrogen pricing while delivering decarbonization. Few technologies can deliver both hydrogen and near-pure CO2 from the same system, which makes our value proposition particularly compelling and economic for industrial customers.

What are your top goals over the next two to three years?

Execution is the priority. We must deliver on projects that are signed or in the process of being signed, bringing them through final investment decisions and into operation. Our target is to have the first projects online in 2028.

In parallel, we will expand our global portfolio across Asia, Europe, South America, and select North American markets. By 2029, we expect our first wave of projects to be operating and the next wave moving toward deployment.

Equally important is building a strong organization and culture. We want Utility Global to be known as a place where people build meaningful careers at the forefront of energy and industrial decarbonization.