Ormat Breaks Ground on New Geothermal Power Plant in Nevada

March 23, 2005

The Steamboat geothermal plant is a low, wide facility that could easily be mistaken for a commercial building.'

The existing geothermal plants in Ormat's Steamboat, Nevada, complex sit low and unobtrusive against the desert landscape.
Credit: Joel Renner, INEEL

Ormat Nevada, Inc., a subsidiary of Ormat Technologies, Inc., broke ground on March 15th on the first geothermal electric generating plant to be built at Steamboat, Nevada since 1991. Known as the Galena Geothermal Project, the 20-megawatt plant will bring the total output from the Steamboat geothermal complex to 44 megawatts. According to Ormat, the Galena Geothermal Project is the first to begin construction since the Nevada Legislature passed laws in 2001 requiring utilities to supply a portion of their power from renewable energy resources. See the Ormat press release.

Efforts to develop the first geothermal power plant in Idaho also continue to press ahead. In February, U.S. Geothermal Inc. acquired two parcels of land and energy rights at the proposed location of its Raft River Idaho geothermal power project. The acquisitions add 417.5 acres of surface land and 259 acres of new energy rights to the company's holdings at the site. See the U.S. Geothermal press release (PDF 88 KB). Download Acrobat Reader.