Ormat targets 1 GW EGS in major geothermal shift

Ormat Technologies has put numbers and dates around its EGS ambitions for the first time. At its Investor & Analyst Day on 8 September, the company said it is targeting 100 MW of operating EGS capacity in 2030-2031 and 1 GW by 2033-2035. It also outlined a 3-4 GW development pipeline, with a planned 280 MW project at Dixie Valley in Nevada as the first major commercial development.

These are still targets rather than committed projects. Ormat says delivery will depend on drilling results, reservoir performance, permitting, grid access, PPAs, financing and final investment decisions. Even so, the announcement changes the scale of Ormat’s EGS story. What had largely been a programme of pilots, partnerships and technology development now has a commercial capacity target and a development timeline.

From EGS pilots to commercial development

Ormat has worked on EGS for almost two decades, including a US Department of Energy-supported project at Desert Peak in Nevada that produced grid-connected power in 2013. More recently, the company has returned to EGS through partnerships with SLB and Sage Geosystems, as well as development of its Ormega100 binary generation platform.

ThinkGeoEnergy reported in June on the selection of Desert Peak for an EGS pilot with SLB. The project will apply deep drilling, horizontal well sections and engineered connectivity between injection and production wells. Drilling of the first well is planned from late 2026 to early 2027, with testing and surface facilities to follow.

A separate programme with Sage Geosystems will test a pressure-based reservoir concept using cyclic injection and production. Ormat says the two approaches are intended to answer some of the central commercial questions around EGS, including MW output per well, reservoir performance, water management, drilling execution and cost per MW.

Neither programme has yet delivered the reservoir data required for full commercial deployment. That makes the next two years particularly important for Ormat’s stated growth path.

Dixie Valley becomes the first commercial test

The clearest change in Ormat’s strategy is Dixie Valley.

At Dixie Valley, Ormat is proposing three stages. The first 25 MW is targeted for 2029-2030, followed by another 75 MW in 2030-2031. A third phase of 180 MW could follow in 2032 to a total of 280 MW.

Ormat says the land and water rights needed to support commercial-scale development have been secured. A generator interconnection agreement covering 60 MW has been executed, while additional requests are intended to provide a pathway towards 100 MW by 2030 and potentially the full 280 MW by 2032. A long-term EGS power purchase agreement remains under negotiation.

That distinction is important. Dixie Valley is now a named commercial development with a phased capacity plan, but most of the project remains dependent on results from drilling and testing and on further commercial and grid milestones.

Why Ormat’s move matters for EGS

Much of the recent momentum around next-generation geothermal has been driven by specialist developers, most prominently Fervo Energy.

Fervo has moved faster into physical EGS construction. Its 500 MW Cape Station development in Utah is under construction, and the company has secured major power contracts including a 396 MW agreement with Google announced earlier this month. In May 2026, Fervo also raised $1.89 billion through its Nasdaq initial public offering.

Ormat represents a different development model.

The company already combines geothermal exploration and reservoir engineering with drilling, project development, power plant engineering, equipment manufacturing, construction and long-term plant operations. Its electricity portfolio stood at 1,355 MW as of August 2026, while its Product segment supplies binary geothermal equipment globally.

What makes Ormat’s move unusual is the platform behind it. Ormat already has the exploration, reservoir engineering, drilling, project development, plant engineering, manufacturing, construction and operating capabilities needed for geothermal projects. It is now trying to apply that existing organisation to engineered reservoirs.

That could have implications beyond Ormat’s own portfolio. Successful deployment would add another large developer to a next-generation geothermal market that has so far depended heavily on specialist companies, while also expanding the potential market for drilling, subsurface services and binary generation equipment.

Ormega100 adds a second route to EGS growth

Ormat is also positioning itself to participate in EGS projects that it does not own.

At the World Geothermal Congress in June 2026, the company introduced the Ormega100, a binary generation unit designed around the higher-temperature and larger-scale applications anticipated from EGS. ThinkGeoEnergy reported on the launch of the Ormega100 at the time.

The current engineering design targets 106 MW gross and 72-80 MW net output. Ormat is targeting an above-ground EPC cost below $1.5 million per MW and an EPC timeframe below 18 months, although these remain engineering targets rather than demonstrated commercial performance.

The company ultimately sees two routes into the EGS market: developing, owning and operating its own projects, and supplying generation equipment, EPC and operations services to other developers.

Ormat is targeting production capacity of up to 10 Ormega100 units annually, compared with an initial internal capability equivalent to about four units or roughly 300 MW per year.

EGS remains outside Ormat’s core 2030 plan

There is another important point in Ormat’s Investor Day material. Its existing 2030 growth plan does not depend on EGS.

Ormat is targeting a total portfolio of 3.5-3.7 GW by 2030, with annual revenue of $1.5-1.6 billion. Those figures exclude EGS.

In other words, EGS sits on top of the company’s base growth plan rather than inside it. Ormat did provide an indication of what a larger EGS business could look like, using an illustrative 1 GW portfolio with $5.5-6.5 billion in cumulative capital expenditure and around $1 billion in annual revenue at a power price of $120/MWh. The company was clear that these figures are illustrative and are not financial guidance.

The scale is worth putting into perspective. One gigawatt would be equivalent to about a quarter of the roughly 4 GW of geothermal generation capacity currently operating in the United States, based on the nameplate-capacity measure used by NREL and Geothermal Rising.

That puts the size of Ormat’s ambition into perspective.

Fervo and other next-generation geothermal developers have already demonstrated growing utility, hyperscaler and capital-market interest in EGS. Ormat’s announcement now adds an established geothermal owner, operator, developer and equipment supplier to the group pursuing commercial-scale deployment.

Whether the 1 GW target becomes operating capacity will depend first on the drilling and reservoir results expected from the company’s Nevada pilot programmes in 2027 and 2028.

Source: Presentation at Ormat’s 2026 Investor Day in NYC at the NYSE, Sept. 8, 2026