USA, Nevada:

A Troubled Geothermal Plant Finds a Savior in a Startup and Vinod Khosla (Fortune Magazine)

AltaRock has bought the Blue Mountain Faulkner geothermal power plant and are implementing a plan to bring the capacity back up to 50 megawatts

“Blue Mountain”  by Ryan Nelson, Winnemucca, Nevada

As of last Thursday, the Blue Mountain Faulkner geothermal power plant finally has a new owner with a new plan to get it back up and running at full capacity. Tech startup AltaRock Energy has officially acquired the plant using its new project arm Baseload Clean Energy Partners, which has an anchor investor in venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, AltaRock Energy CEO Aaron Mandell told Fortune in an exclusive interview. Khosla’s involvement in Baseload is from his personal funds and not from Khosla Ventures.

AltaRock’s tech facelift of the Blue Mountain plant represents a bridge between the geothermal industry’s past and its potential future. In 2014, EIG, who took ownership of Blue Montain from Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP), hired AltaRock to improve the site with its technology and potentially bring it back up to capacity. Mandell told Fortune that the company has already been able to halt the temperature decline, and boost the energy capacity back up to 40 megawatts.

But now AltaRock bought the site and are implementing a plan to bring the capacity back up to 50 megawatts using hydroshearing in the first stage, and potentially drilling in the second stage.

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