India has no commercial geothermal power plant in operation as of September 2026. The only geothermal electricity in the country comes from a 20 kW pilot unit at Manuguru in Telangana, and the first demonstration-scale plant, a 1 MW pilot by ONGC at Puga in Ladakh, is still at the well-testing stage. On paper the resource is large: the Geological Survey of India (GSI) puts geothermal energy potential in India at about 10,600 MW, spread over 381 hot springs and thermal areas. A first National Policy on Geothermal Energy was notified in September 2025 to start turning that into projects.
If you want the general picture of how geothermal plants work and their pros and cons worldwide, see geothermal energy: advantages, disadvantages and applications. This page sticks to India.
How big is India’s geothermal resource?
Two GSI surveys underpin almost every figure you will see quoted:
- Geothermal Atlas of India, 1991: about 340 hot spring sites grouped into seven geothermal provinces. This is where the widely repeated “340 hot springs” comes from.
- Geothermal Atlas of India, 2022 (GSI Special Publication 125): 381 thermally anomalous areas, with hot spring surface temperatures of about 35 to 89 °C, and an estimated power potential of about 10,600 MW. The 2025 policy and MNRE statements use these numbers, grouped into ten provinces.
So “about 10 GW” is a fair rounding of the official 10.6 GW estimate. It is a resource estimate; very little has been confirmed by deep drilling. Where that heat comes from, radiogenic granites and deep faults rather than young magma in most of the country, is covered in sources of geothermal energy.
India’s main geothermal provinces
| Province | Key sites | Setting and what it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Himalayan | Puga and Chumathang (Ladakh), Manikaran (Himachal Pradesh), Tapoban (Uttarakhand) | Hottest resources in the country, linked to active tectonics; Puga is the only site with a power pilot under way |
| Cambay graben | Tuwa and Unai (Gujarat), oilfields around Ankleshwar | Rift basin with hot oil and gas wells; candidate for reusing old wells |
| Son-Narmada-Tapi (SONATA) | Tattapani (Chhattisgarh), Anhoni (Madhya Pradesh) | Rift zone across central India; Tattapani has had exploratory drilling for a small plant |
| West coast | Hot springs along the Konkan coast of Maharashtra | Many springs, moderate temperatures; mostly bathing and direct use |
| Godavari | Manuguru (Telangana) | Gondwana basin; site of India’s 20 kW binary pilot plant |
| Mahanadi | Deulajhari and Atri (Odisha) | Gondwana basin; low to medium temperature |
| Andaman-Nicobar volcanic arc | Barren Island | India’s only active volcano; high-temperature heat but uninhabited and offshore |
The ten-province scheme used since the 2022 atlas also lists Naga-Lushai, Aravalli and the South Indian cratonic provinces, which are lower-temperature. The older seven-province list included Sohana in Haryana.
Geothermal power plants in India: what exists
Manuguru, Telangana (20 kW, operating)
Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) found hot water at about 1,000 m while drilling for coal. It built a 20 kW binary organic Rankine cycle pilot plant there, with work starting in 2021 and Ministry of Coal funding of about Rs 2.42 crore, and it was reported in operation in August 2024. It is a technology demonstrator, not a grid supplier.
Puga, Ladakh (1 MW pilot, under development)
Puga, in the Changthang region at over 14,000 ft (about 4,300 m), is India’s hottest prospect, fed by the high heat flow of the young Himalayan crust (for how magma-driven geothermal sources differ, see our separate page). GSI drilled shallow boreholes there from the 1970s. The ONGC project timeline so far:
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 6 Feb 2021 | Tripartite MoU between the UT of Ladakh, LAHDC Leh and ONGC Energy Centre. Phase I: a 1 MW pilot plant at Puga. Phase II: surveys and drilling at Chumathang and a detailed project report for commercial development. |
| Aug 2022 | First exploratory well hit fluid far hotter than expected at about 39 m and blew out after a power failure, releasing mud and hot water into the Puga stream. Work was halted. |
| 2025 | A well reached about 405 m, with high-pressure steam and hot fluid reported. |
| 23 May 2026 | MoU (which expired 5 Feb 2026) extended by five years, citing weather delays. |
| July 2026 | Second well (spudded 3 June) completed to 1,000 m on 8 July 2026; the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh commissioned the two 1,000 m wells on 17 July 2026 for reservoir evaluation. |
Testing and commissioning of the 1 MW pilot are targeted for financial year 2026-27. Reported temperatures around 400 m differ between sources, from about 135 °C to above 200 °C, so the reservoir is not yet fully characterised. Until the turbine runs, Puga is a pilot in progress, not a power plant.
The National Policy on Geothermal Energy, 2025
MNRE notified India’s first geothermal policy on 15 September 2025, with MNRE as the nodal ministry. Its main provisions:
- Site allocation by states for exploration periods of three years, extendable by two more, with an extra two years for high-altitude sites.
- 100% FDI allowed in the sector.
- Proposed fiscal support: import duty and GST exemptions, tax holidays, accelerated depreciation and viability gap funding, plus sharing of exploration risk with developers.
- Grid access: support for feed-in tariffs, transmission charge waivers and eligibility under renewable purchase obligations.
- A national geothermal data repository built with GSI and other agencies.
- Reuse of abandoned oil and gas wells, and direct uses such as ground-source heat pumps, greenhouse heating, cold storage and aquaculture.
The policy sets no numerical capacity target. Alongside it, MNRE has backed pilot and resource-assessment projects, including reuse of oil wells at Ankleshwar in Gujarat, a solar-geothermal hybrid at Gandhinagar and resource studies at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
Direct uses already in place
- Balneology and pilgrimage: Manikaran, Vashisht, Tapoban, Tattapani and the Konkan springs have been used for bathing, and at Manikaran for community cooking, for centuries.
- Greenhouse and space heating in Ladakh: trials at Chumathang kept greenhouses at about 20 to 25 °C while outside air fell to −35 °C or lower.
- Early power trial: a 5 kW binary pilot unit run by GSI at Manikaran, later destroyed by a landslide.
- Farming and laundry with hot water at Manuguru before the pilot plant was built.
Why the geothermal energy market in India is still tiny
There is no India geothermal energy market in the commercial sense yet: no operating utility-scale plant, no tariff history and no traded capacity. We have not quoted a market-size figure because we could not find one from a named, reliable source. The reasons are practical:
- Medium-enthalpy resources. Outside the Himalaya and Barren Island, most Indian reservoirs are low to medium temperature, which allows only small binary plants with low efficiency.
- Drilling cost and risk. Wells are the biggest cost, and a dry or cool well is money lost. Before 2025 there was no risk-sharing scheme.
- Remote sites. Puga has a short summer working season, seasonal roads and a weak grid, and Barren Island is uninhabited.
- No policy or tariff history until 2025. Solar and wind were already cheap and quick to build, so geothermal never won a tender.
- Fragile environments. The 2022 Puga blowout showed how easily a spill damages high-altitude streams.
Outlook: realistic prospects to 2030
Expect the next few years to be about proving resources, not adding gigawatts. The milestones worth watching are the Puga 1 MW pilot running through a full season, Chumathang drilling under Phase II, the first state site allocations under the 2025 policy, and oil-well reuse in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Heat will likely scale faster than power: ground-source heat pumps in cities and geothermal heating in Ladakh and Himachal, where the alternative is diesel or kerosene, need no deep drilling. A reasonable reading is a handful of pilot plants by the end of the decade, with commercial power depending on what those pilots prove.
References
- Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India, National Policy on Geothermal Energy, 2025.
- Geological Survey of India, Geothermal Atlas of India (1991) and Geothermal Atlas of India, 2022 (Special Publication 125).
- US DOE – Geothermal Basics and US DOE – Geothermal Electricity Generation.
FAQs
Is there any geothermal power plant in India?
Not a commercial one. India’s only operating geothermal power unit is a 20 kW pilot plant built by Singareni Collieries at Manuguru, Telangana, reported online in 2024. ONGC’s 1 MW pilot at Puga, Ladakh, is at the well-testing stage, with commissioning targeted for 2026-27.
What is India’s geothermal energy potential?
About 10,600 MW, according to the Geological Survey of India’s Geothermal Atlas of India, 2022, which covers 381 hot springs and thermal areas. The older 1991 atlas listed about 340 hot springs in seven provinces.
Where is India’s first geothermal power plant being built?
At Puga Valley in Ladakh, at over 14,000 ft. ONGC Energy Centre is developing a 1 MW pilot under a 2021 agreement with the Ladakh administration and LAHDC Leh, extended in May 2026 for five years.
Does India have a geothermal energy policy?
Yes. MNRE notified the National Policy on Geothermal Energy on 15 September 2025, India’s first. It covers site allocation by states, 100% FDI, proposed tax and duty relief, exploration risk sharing, a national data repository, reuse of abandoned oil wells and direct uses such as heat pumps.