While geothermal developments in America have been in the picture ever since the 19th century, they were mostly driven by steam power. The recent ones are being increasingly capacitated by binary cycle, which means the heating of a secondary fluid to gear a turbine.
The major utility scale geothermal power plant in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, known as Lightning Dock Geothermal that is also run by binary cycle, came into commercial operation in December 2018. A project by Cyrq Energy, Lightning Dock Geothermal, in partnership with the state's primary utility, Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), has been powering more than 10,000 homes in New Mexico entirely via clean energy. In other words, it provides carbon-free, firm baseload electricity for consumers in the region.
In July 2024, an artificial intelligence-driven geothermal research and development company, Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals, acquired Lightning Dock Geothermal, including the Bruce Levy geothermal power plant in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, from Cyrq Energy. “We are proud of what Cyrq Energy has achieved with Lightning Dock and are confident that Zanskar will continue to advance the project’s success. We look forward to working with Zanskar during the transition of operations,” said Chip Schneider, Interim CEO of Cyrq Energy.
In May 2024, Zanskar had closed US$30mn in new funding from investors to advance geothermal energy as an sustainable alternative to address growing power demand. “Energy requirement forecasts for the electrification of industries like transportation, oil, and big tech data centers massively underestimated how much power will be needed in the U.S. and around the world to meet growing demand,” said Andrew Beebe, Managing Director at Obvious Ventures, which led the funding. “We’ve been scouring the planet for scalable clean power solutions to help address the current energy crisis and believe Zanskar has the disruptive technology needed to help the world avoid gridlock. With its AI-powered platform, Zanskar has made geothermal discovery more accessible and cost-effective, creating opportunities to find and distribute massive supplies of green energy now.”
The Lightning Dock acquisition will allow Zanskar to accelerate research and growth portfolio, as it was already providing exploration services for the project, testing new subsurface characterisation techniques.
Carl Hoiland, CEO of Zanskar, said, “We are excited to integrate Lightning Dock and its staff into our growing portfolio and team. In addition to providing clean power to New Mexico, the geological system and facility here are well suited for development and testing of new subsurface technologies that have the potential to make geothermal energy the most affordable and widely deployed source of firm renewable power. Our work here has already yielded promising early results that can be applied to our broader portfolio of geothermal projects. We look forward to this next stage of Lightning Dock’s history.”