Skip to main content

Ormat’s 35MW Ijen Geothermal Plant Goes Live: A Game-Changer for Indonesia’s Renewable Energy Future

Ormat’s Ijen Geothermal Power Plant: A Bold Step Toward Indonesia’s Renewable Energy Goals  

In a significant move toward expanding Indonesia’s geothermal capacity, Ormat Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ORA) has commenced commercial operations for the 35MW Ijen Geothermal Power Plant in East Java. This milestone not only strengthens Ormat’s global footprint but also aligns with Indonesia’s ambitious target of adding 7.2GW of geothermal capacity by 2035.  

Powering Indonesia’s Future with Geothermal Energy  

The Ijen Geothermal Facility, jointly developed with PT Medco Power Indonesia, will ultimately reach a total capacity of 110MW under a 30-year power purchase agreement (PPA). Currently, the plant is supplying 35MW of clean, baseload electricity to the Java grid, a crucial step in diversifying Indonesia’s energy mix.  

This project showcases Ormat Energy Converter (OEC) technology, which is known for efficiently harnessing geothermal resources across varying temperatures. With Ormat holding a 49% stake in the facility through PT Medco Cahaya Geothermal (MCG), the project highlights a strong international partnership driving sustainable energy development.  

 Strengthening Ormat’s Global Presence  

Doron Blachar, CEO of Ormat Technologies, emphasized the company’s commitment to geothermal expansion:  

“The launch of the Ijen facility is a key step in our strategy to consistently and accretively grow our leading global geothermal energy portfolio and expand our presence in Indonesia.”  

Ormat, with over five decades of experience, has established itself as a leader in geothermal and recovered energy generation (REG). The company currently boasts a global energy portfolio of 1,537MW, spanning key markets such as the U.S., Kenya, Guatemala, Indonesia, Honduras, and Guadeloupe.  

With its deep expertise, Ormat is not only pushing the boundaries of geothermal development but is also expanding into energy storage and solar PV technologies, reinforcing its role in the clean energy transition.  

The Bigger Picture: Indonesia’s Geothermal Potential  

Indonesia holds one of the largest untapped geothermal reserves in the world, estimated at 29GW. However, only a fraction of this potential has been developed. Projects like the Ijen Geothermal Facility play a crucial role in bridging the gap, providing a stable, renewable energy source while supporting the country’s net-zero ambitions.  

The Indonesian government’s geothermal-friendly policies, coupled with partnerships between international and local players, are setting the stage for rapid geothermal expansion. As Ormat and Medco Power continue their collaboration, the Ijen project is just the beginning of a much larger transformation in Indonesia’s energy landscape.  


Final Thoughts  

Ormat’s successful COD at Ijen is a testament to the growing role of geothermal energy in the global energy transition. By harnessing Indonesia’s volcanic riches, Ormat is not just lighting up homes but also driving economic growth, job creation, and carbon reduction.  

With the world looking for cleaner and more sustainable energy solutions, projects like Ijen reaffirm geothermal power as a key player in the renewable revolution. Could this be a stepping stone to an even larger geothermal boom across Southeast Asia? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain geothermal energy is heating up the future.

Source:Ormat

Connect with us:LinkedIn, X

Comments

Post a Comment

Hot Topics

Blowout at Cape Station: Fervo Energy’s First Major Crisis After Blockbuster IPO

Just weeks after a record-breaking IPO, the flagship project of the "geothermal unicorn" faces its first major operational crisis. By : Robert Buluma   Beaver County, Utah – The morning of May 27, 2026, began like any other at the Cape Station construction site in rural Utah. Workers for Fervo Energy, the newly public darling of the renewable energy world, were engaged in the complex task of drilling deep into the Earth’s crust to unlock what the company promised would be the future of 24/7 clean power. But by the afternoon, the routine had turned into a crisis. The site had experienced a blowout—an uncontrolled release of fluid or pressure from a well. For any energy company, a blowout is a serious matter. For Fervo Energy, which had just raised $1.89 billion in a blockbuster Nasdaq debut two weeks prior, it represents an immediate stress test of its technology, its safety protocols, and its $7.7 billion market valuation. While the well has since been contained and no injur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Eavor Geretsried Geothermal Breakthrough: Inside the Closed-Loop Energy Revolution, Drilling Challenges, and Path to Scalable Clean Power

The Geothermal “Holy Grail” Just Got a Reality Check: Inside Eavor’s Geretsried Breakthrough By: Robert Buluma   May 22, 2026 It’s not every day a deep-tech energy company publishes a detailed technical report that openly documents what went wrong on its flagship project—and still comes out looking stronger. That’s exactly what Eavor Technologies did with its Geretsried geothermal project in Bavaria, Germany. The result is unusually transparent: part technical post-mortem, part validation of a technology many have doubted for years. And the core message is simple. They built it. It works. But it wasn’t smooth. The short version Eavor is trying to solve one of geothermal energy’s hardest problems: how to produce reliable heat and power anywhere, not just in rare volcanic hotspots. Their claim has always been bold: a closed-loop geothermal system that is scalable, dispatchable, low-carbon, and independent of natural reservoirs. Critics have long argued it wouldn’t survive...
Post a Comment
Read more

Eavor steps back from operator role in the Geretsried geothermal project

Eavor at the Crossroads: What Geretsried Really Tells Us About the Future of Closed-Loop Geothermal By Alphaxioms Geothermal Insights | May 13, 2026 For years, Eavor Technologies was the geothermal sector's most talked-about enigma. The company raised hundreds of millions of dollars, attracted backing from heavyweights including BP , Chevron , Helmerich & Payne , and Temasek , and made bold promises about a proprietary closed-loop technology that would quietly revolutionise how humanity extracts heat from the earth. But it rarely said much in public. The secrecy was, to many observers in the geothermal community, a feature rather than a bug — protecting intellectual property, managing competitive intelligence, buying time. Now, Eavor is talking. And what it is saying is worth listening to very carefully. In an exclusive interview published on May 13, 2026, by GeoExpro editor Henk Kombrink, Eavor's new president and CEO Mark Fitzgerald — who took the role in October 2025 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

GEN Electric Grid Impact Study RFP in Framingham Massachusetts Advances Utility Geothermal Networks

GEN Electric Grid Impact Study RFP Signals a Defining Moment for Geothermal Energy Networks in the United States By: Robert Buluma The United States geothermal sector is entering a new phase, one where geothermal systems are no longer being viewed only as sources of heating and cooling, but increasingly as strategic infrastructure capable of strengthening the electric grid itself. In one of the most important emerging developments in utility-scale thermal network deployment, the Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET), in partnership with Eversource Gas, has officially launched a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a groundbreaking Electric Grid Impact Study focused on Geothermal Energy Networks (GENs), also referred to as Thermal Energy Networks (TENs). Backed by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy under grant “DE-EE0010662.0002 Home Energy Efficiency Team Utility-Managed Geothermal Pilot in Framingham, Massachusetts,” the initiative represents far more than a local energy pilot. It is...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rodatherm Energy: The Refrigerant Gambit

By: Robert Buluma   Rodatherm Energy has done something no other geothermal startup has attempted at commercial scale: swapped water for refrigerant in a closed-loop system. The claim is 50% higher thermal efficiency than water-based binary cycles, achieved by circulating a proprietary phase-change fluid through a fully cased, pressurized wellbore. The company emerged from stealth in September 2025 with a $38 million Series A—the largest first venture raise in geothermal history. Lead investor Evok Innovations was joined by Toyota Ventures, TDK Ventures, and the Grantham Foundation. The engineering thesis is elegant. The execution risks are significant. This is an Alphaxioms examination of both. II. The Thermodynamic Distinction Every geothermal company you've covered moves heat using water or steam. Rodatherm moves heat using a fluid that boils and condenses inside the wellbore. In a conventional closed-loop water system (Eavor's model), water circulates as a single-phase liq...
Post a Comment
Read more

Steam and Silence: Why Ethiopia's Geothermal Promise Remains Unfulfilled

Steam and Silence: The Uncertain Fate of Ethiopia’s Geothermal Revolution By : Robert Buluma   Despite sitting on a volcanic rift valley with over 10,000 MW of clean energy potential, Ethiopia produces just 7.3 MW of geothermal power—enough to power a small town, but a fraction of what the nation needs. For a country long dependent on hydropower (which fluctuates with drought) and biomass (which degrades forests), geothermal offers the dream of steady, 24/7 baseload energy. However, as investigations into the flagship Aluto Langano and Tulu Moye projects reveal, the road from geological promise to actual megawatts is fraught with technical failure, financial gridlock, and conflicting narratives. The Ghosts of Aluto Langano The story begins and, in some ways, remains stuck at Aluto Langano. Developed by the former EEPCO (now Ethiopian Electric Power/EEP), this site is a textbook case of high potential meeting harsh reality. The resource itself is world-class. Data confirms a high-te...
Post a Comment
Read more

Baseload Capital launches new geothermal power plant in Japan, expanding its presence in the country’s untapped geothermal sector

Bill Gates-backed Baseload Capital has commissioned its second geothermal power plant in Japan, marking further expansion into a market with significant untapped geothermal resources. By : Robert Buluma   Image :  Kazuyuki Akaishi, manager at Furusato Netsuden and Anders Helling, CEO at Baseload Capital. Press photo ., Credit :  Imapct loop The Waita Model: How a Swedish-Backed Startup Just Cracked Japan's Geothermal Code KUMAMOTO / STOCKHOLM — In the misty highlands of Kumamoto Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu, a quiet revolution in renewable energy has just switched on. On June 4, 2026, Stockholm-based  Baseload Capital officially commissioned its second geothermal power plant in Japan: Waita No. 2. While a 4.995 MW facility might seem modest compared to a nuclear reactor or an offshore wind farm, the financial and political ramifications of this event are seismic. For decades, Japan has been described as the "Saudi Arabia of geothermal." The archipel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ormat’s Ormega100: How the World’s Largest 100 MW Binary Unit Is Industrializing Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS)

The Geothermal Tipping Point: Ormat’s 100 MW Bet on an Engineered Earth By: Robert Buluma   An Analysis of the Ormega100 and the Industrialization of Enhanced Geothermal Systems In the quiet corridors of the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre, amid the hum of the World Geothermal Congress 2026, a threshold was crossed. It wasn’t marked by a flashy prototype or a speculative white paper. Instead, it came in the form of a press release from Reno, Nevada-based Ormat Technologies —a company that has spent six decades drilling, building, and operating quietly in the background of the renewable energy boom. The announcement was deceptively simple: Ormat unveiled the Ormega100, a 100 MW binary power generation unit designed specifically for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). Buried beneath the technical jargon of heat exchangers and working fluids lies a seismic shift in energy economics. For the last twenty years, the renewable energy narrative has been dominated by the intermittency pro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Data-Driven Site Selection in Nevada Pushes SLB and Ormat's EGS Development Forward

Breaking Ground Below: How Data-Driven Site Selection in Nevada Is Unlocking the Next Generation of Geothermal Energy Published: June 9, 2026 | By Robert Buluma   In the high desert of northern Nevada, where the sagebrush gives way to volcanic rock and the heat beneath the surface has long been a whispered secret, a quiet but profound shift is underway. It is not marked by the dramatic collapse of a coal plant or the sudden rise of a solar farm, but by something far more subtle: the deliberate, data-driven selection of a patch of earth known as Desert Peak. On June 9, 2026, SLB and Ormat Technologies announced that Desert Peak has been selected as the preferred location for a planned enhanced geothermal system (EGS) pilot. This decision, the culmination of a rigorous multi-site evaluation across several of Ormat’s existing geothermal fields, marks a critical inflection point. It is the moment when enhanced geothermal—long a theoretical promise of limitless clean energy—begins it...
Post a Comment
Read more

Seequent, 400C Energy, and Cascade Institute Join Forces to Map Canada's Deep Geothermal Energy Potential

Beneath the Cold: How the Canadian Thermal Model Could Unlock a Geothermal Revolution By: Robert Buluma   Calgary, Alberta – June 10, 2026 — The image of Canadian energy has long been defined by what we extract from the ground and burn: oil sands, natural gas, and coal. But two kilometers below the foothills of the Rockies, and three kilometers beneath the flat fields of Saskatchewan, a different kind of resource is simmering. It is silent, carbon-free, and inexhaustible. It is the heat of the Earth itself. For decades, geothermal energy in Canada has been a tantalizing "what if." The country sits on some of the most significant deep heat reservoirs in the world—the product of ancient continental collisions, radioactive decay in granite batholiths, and the sheer thermal mass of the crust. Yet, compared to Iceland, the United States, or Kenya, Canada’s geothermal sector remains embryonic. The reason is not a lack of heat, but a lack of certainty. On June 8, 2026, standing bene...
Post a Comment
Read more