Khosla-backed Mazama Energy just raised $135M to drill deeper into super-hot-rock geothermal

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The fresh funding will help the company develop horizontal wells in super-hot rocks capable of generating 15 megawatts of electricity per well.

Mazama plans to start generating electricity sometime next year and said its first site in Oregon is capable of producing 10 gigawatts of electricity. That’s a sharp upward revision from the company’s estimate last year , when investor Vinod Khosla said the site had the potential to produce 5 gigawatts.

Enhanced geothermal startups are shaping up to be the dark horse in the battle to power AI data centers and other large loads on the grid. While tech companies and data center developers have been throwing their weight behind natural gas, geothermal startups have been quickly advancing their technology.

Unlike previous geothermal projects, enhanced geothermal startups are targeting deeper and hotter rock. Mazama, for example, has drilled past 10,000 feet in 15 days on its way to about 15,000 feet deep. At those depths, the company can access 750˚ F (400˚ C) heat, which at high pressures turns water into a “supercritical” fluid that’s neither fully liquid nor fully gas — a state that lets it absorb far more energy than ordinary steam. Mazama said that will allow each well to produce up to 10 times more power than traditional geothermal technologies.

Given the depths Mazama is targeting, the potential payoff is significant. Tapping just 1% of super-hot rock worldwide could generate more than 63 terawatts of electricity, according to the University of Twente and the Clean Air Task Force.