Ormat dominates US geothermal auction in Nevada

By Nichola Groom

Oct 20 (Reuters) - A Trump administration sale of geothermal energy leases in Nevada attracted nearly $4.5 million in winning bids on Tuesday, with developers Ormat ORA.N and Invenergy as the top spenders.

The auction drew bids on 60 of the 83 land parcels offered by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, according to sale results posted on a government web site. Those 69 leases cover 186,641 acres in the state.

The sale was the fourth of six government geothermal auctions held in 2026 and the first this year in Nevada, which boasts substantial geothermal resources.

President Donald Trump's administration has promoted geothermal energy as a promising new source of always-on electricity that can help meet the nation's soaring demand for electricity tied to the expansion of artificial intelligence.

Ormat, an established geothermal developer with substantial holdings in Nevada, accounted for nearly half of the auction's total high bids, winning eight parcels on about 20,000 acres for $2.29 million.

Ormat also placed the auction's highest bid of $201 per acre for a 3,841-acre parcel in White Pine County in eastern Nevada.

Invenergy, an energy and infrastructure developer that has recently expanded into geothermal, picked up nine parcels on 37,000 acres for $694,947. The company was the auction's largest winner by acreage.

Glovate LLC was the auction's third-biggest winner, claiming six parcels on 24,000 acres for $570,601. It was not immediately known if Glovate, which was formed in Delaware earlier this month, is tied to an established geothermal company.

Some of the acreage offered overlapped with major planned solar energy projects. Two parcels that overlap with NextEra Energy's Sawtooth solar project were won by United Minerals and Mining LLC, another entity established in Delaware this month.

Geothermal energy has been produced in the United States since the mid-1900s, but it has recently emerged as one of the fastest-growing areas of the power sector as companies have adapted oil-and-gas drilling techniques to tap heat deep underground.

Lease prices at government geothermal auctions have soared this year, but competition at the Nevada auction was concentrated in a handful of parcels. More than a third of the leases sold at the minimum price of $2 an acre.