Geothermal resources in India remain largely underutilised despite decades of exploration. Analyse the reasons and suggest a way forward.

The Geological Survey of India's Geothermal Atlas of India, 2022 places India's theoretical geothermal potential at about 10,600 MW across 381 thermally anomalous areas [1][2]. Yet, more than five decades after exploration began in the 1970s, installed capacity is confined to pilots such as SCCL's 20 kW plant at Manuguru, Telangana [1] — a gap rooted in scientific, economic and governance factors.

Scientific and technological constraints

• India's resources are largely low-to-medium enthalpy hot springs, unlike the high-enthalpy volcanic fields of Iceland or the USA, making power conversion technically harder.
• Deep drilling and reservoir characterisation remain unproven domestically; MNRE's geothermal projects are still at the RDD&D (research, demonstration, deployment) stage [3].

Economic and financial factors

• High upfront exploration and drilling risk with uncertain resource yield deters private capital, while solar and wind offer quicker, cheaper returns.
• Absence, until recently, of dedicated tariff or risk-mitigation support left geothermal outside mainstream renewable financing.

Locational and infrastructural factors

• Prime sites — Puga and Chumathang (Ladakh), Manikaran (Himachal Pradesh), Tattapani (Chhattisgarh) [4] — lie in remote, seismically sensitive Himalayan terrain with weak evacuation infrastructure, partly addressed by the Green Energy Corridor Phase-II for Ladakh [5].

Policy and institutional gaps

• A dedicated national framework arrived only with the National Policy on Geothermal Energy, notified on 15 September 2025 [2]; earlier efforts were scattered pilots without clear allocation of exploration rights or Centre–State coordination.

Way forward

• Operationalise the 2025 policy through transparent resource-allocation rules and a public risk-sharing fund for exploratory drilling.
• Prioritise direct-use applications — space heating, greenhouses, cold storage, tourism and desalination — which the policy explicitly covers and which are viable at India's temperatures [1].
• Deepen technology transfer under MNRE's collaboration with Iceland, the USA, Australia and Saudi Arabia [3].

Geothermal offers what most renewables cannot — reliable, round-the-clock, low-carbon energy. Converting the 2025 policy from framework to field-level capacity, beginning with direct-use projects in Ladakh's cold desert, would strengthen border-region energy security and advance India's Net Zero 2070 commitment [2].