An old-school geothermal giant rides the tech’s newfound popularity

Geothermal power is having a moment, and it's mostly about how electricity gets made at large scale, not something that plugs directly into your house. Ormat, a decades-old geothermal company based in Reno, Nevada, is expanding both its traditional plants and a newer approach called "enhanced geothermal," which drills into hot, dry rock and pumps in liquid to create underground heat reservoirs where none existed naturally. Ormat is reviving a pilot project in Nevada with oilfield company SLB and separately investing in startup Sage Geosystems to test this technology at its own sites.

The bigger picture: rising electricity demand from data centers and state clean-energy targets is pushing utilities to pay much higher prices for reliable, round-the-clock power, which is drawing billions of dollars into geothermal. Startups like Fervo Energy, Quaise Energy, and Zanskar are racing to build new plants, using drilling techniques borrowed from oil and gas to cut costs and speed up development. Fervo recently went public, and the federal government has been speeding up permits for geothermal projects on public land in states like Nevada.

None of this changes what's available for home heating or cooling upgrades right now. It's about how the electric grid gets its power, not about home geothermal heat pumps or rebates. But if geothermal keeps growing as the Department of Energy predicts, it could mean more carbon-free electricity feeding into the grid your home draws from in the coming years.