Using data and field science to discover and operate geothermal power.
Photo credit: Zanskar / zanskar.com
Zanskar is a geothermal energy company founded in 2019 by geoscientists Carl Hoiland and Joel Edwards. It combines regional geophysical, thermal, geologic, and satellite datasets with machine-learning models, field surveys, and exploration drilling to identify and characterize naturally occurring geothermal systems. The company’s business spans discovery, prospect development, and ownership and operation of power assets in the western United States.
Zanskar moved beyond exploration when it purchased the Lightning Dock geothermal plant in New Mexico in May 2024. The company says it discovered and drilled a deeper, hotter production zone and restored the previously underperforming facility to full capacity in less than a year. Lightning Dock is an operating grid-connected asset and New Mexico’s only utility-scale geothermal plant; it is different from Zanskar’s Pumpernickel, Big Blind, and other prospects, where discovery wells, temperature measurements, resource estimates, or development plans do not yet constitute power production.
The company announced a $115 million Series C in January 2026 to expand exploration and begin building plants across its pipeline, with projects slated by the company to start delivering power before 2030. Zanskar describes a multi-gigawatt or gigawatt-scale development pipeline and record discoveries. Those figures represent modeled or appraised potential across prospects, not current operating generation capacity, signed power delivered, or completed plants.
Conventional geothermal plants can provide firm electricity with low operational greenhouse-gas emissions and a much smaller weather-dependence than wind or solar. Zanskar aims to reduce the high cost and failure rate of early exploration by combining machine learning with field validation and targeted drilling. Better discovery and reservoir models could make more naturally occurring hydrothermal resources financeable and add round-the-clock generation to power systems.
Subsurface predictions remain uncertain until wells establish temperature, permeability, flow, chemistry, and sustainable reservoir behavior. Drilling can fail, and projects require permits, interconnection, water and land management, induced-seismicity controls, community engagement, financing, and long development schedules. Plant emissions and impacts vary by field. A prospective resource, discovery announcement, pipeline estimate, or productive well is not equivalent to a commissioned plant or annual electricity delivered.
Zanskar’s clearest delivered operating result is Lightning Dock. It acquired the plant in May 2024 and reports restoring it to full capacity and delivering power to the New Mexico grid after drilling a deeper, hotter zone. Public company materials call the new producer the most productive pumped geothermal well in the United States. These are operating-asset claims, though public materials reviewed here do not provide an independently audited annual megawatt-hour total.
At Pumpernickel and Big Blind in Nevada, Zanskar reports large previously unknown geothermal systems and record exploration results. Its January 2026 financing announcement describes a gigawatt-scale pipeline and plants intended to deliver before 2030. These are discoveries, resource interpretations, and development plans; they should not be added to Lightning Dock as operating megawatts or current clean-power delivery.
Zanskar announced a $115 million Series C in January 2026 and said the round brought total equity funding to $180 million. Capital will support further discovery, drilling, and construction. Equity raised and subsurface potential measure financial and project progress, not avoided emissions or electricity generated.
Data-guided exploration
Regional datasets and machine-learning models prioritize prospects before field surveys and drilling commit the largest portions of exploration capital.
Field-validated subsurface models
Geoscientists ground-truth predictions with measurements and wells, creating feedback that can improve later prospect selection and reservoir estimates.
Firm geothermal generation
Successful hydrothermal projects can provide round-the-clock power that complements variable wind and solar resources on the grid.
Integrated asset development
Zanskar can carry selected resources from discovery through drilling, plant development, ownership, and operation instead of stopping at prospect sales.
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