Zanskar snaps up Lightning Dock geothermal plant in New Mexico

US AI-powered geothermal discovery start-up Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals announced the acquisition of Lightning Dock Geothermal, including the 14-MWe Bruce Levy geothermal power plant in New Mexico, from domestic peer Cyrq Energy LLC.

Lightning Dock is located in Hidalgo County, described as the easternmost such facility in the US.

Cyrq Energy launched the original 4-MWe Lightning Dock project in 2013 with plans to boost the capacity to 10 MWe. The expansion, however, did not happen with the original equipment supplier due to performance difficulties.

Cyrq Energy hired Turboden and Industrial Builders to repower the site in 2017. The new plant was designed to increase the nominal output to 13.7 MWe and off-design up to 15.2 MWe, using a single organic rankine cycle (ORC) turbine.

The repowered plant has been in operation since the end of 2018. At the time, Cyrq named the new station after geothermal pioneer Bruce Levy.

“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,” said Zanskar’s CEO Carl Hoiland.

Zanskar uses machine learning and big data to reduce the risk and cost of geothermal development.

The New Mexico acquisition comes after, earlier this year, the company raised USD 30 million (EUR 27.9m) in a Series A funding round to advance its technology and progress greenfield projects.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.932)

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