Geothermal Energy: India's First Two Wells at Puga Valley, Ladakh

The Press Information Bureau issued a backgrounder on geothermal energy on 4 September 2026. Geothermal energy is the heat held inside the Earth. Unlike solar and wind power, it is available round the clock. That single property is what makes it valuable to a grid.

The policy and the nodal ministry

The Government notified the National Policy on Geothermal Energy in September 2025. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is the nodal ministry for implementing it. The policy supports exploration, drilling, reservoir management, direct-use applications, Ground Source Heat Pumps, a national geothermal data repository, pilot projects and Centres of Excellence. It also allows abandoned oil and gas wells to be repurposed for geothermal use.

The milestone in Ladakh

In July 2026 the ONGC Energy Centre commissioned the country's first two geothermal wells. They are at Puga Valley in Ladakh, which lies at over 14,000 feet above sea level and is known for its hot springs. Each well goes down about 1,000 metres. They will support reservoir evaluation and pave the way for India's first 1 megawatt demonstration geothermal power project.

India's resource base

The ten provinces are the Himalayan Geothermal Province, Naga-Lusai, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Son Narmada Tapi (SONATA), West Coast, Cambay Graben, Aravalli, Mahanadi, Godavari and the South Indian Cratonic regions.

The world picture

Geothermal power is already proven worldwide. Global installed capacity reached 15.67 GW by the end of 2025. Indonesia, the United States, the Philippines, Türkiye and New Zealand lead the field and together hold around 67 per cent of that capacity. India has identified geothermal energy as an area of cooperation with Australia and Iceland, and in a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia.

The science behind it

The Earth has four layers. The inner core is a solid ball of iron and nickel about 2,400 km wide. The liquid outer core is roughly 2,400 km thick. The mantle extends nearly 2,900 km and is the largest layer. The crust is about 5 to 8 km thick under the oceans and 24 to 56 km thick under the continents. Temperature rises with depth: it reaches about 3,700 degrees Celsius at the mantle-core boundary and 5,000 to 6,000 degrees Celsius in the core. The heat comes from the radioactive decay of uranium, thorium and potassium and from heat left over from the planet's formation. India is working towards Net Zero by 2070.