ONGC plans nationwide survey of geothermal resources in India
Hot Springs on the river bed at Tattapani, India (source: flickr/ Gopal Venkatesan, creative commons)
Carlo Cariaga
25 Jan 2023
ONGC is in the early stages of planning for a survey of geothermal resources that will cover the entire India.
The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the largest crude oil and natural gas company in India, has announced plans of conducting a country-wide mapping of geothermal energy sources. The plans are still at an initial stage and should be executed in around a year.
“In terms of geothermal energy, we have worked in Ladakh but that is just a starter. We are coming up with a geothermal map for entire India,” said ONGC Director Sushma Rawat. “Through that we can identify areas of high heat flows and high geothermal gradient. It is not the same everywhere; (it will be analyzed) where it is the maximum. It is the first stage of exploration. It will be more an atlas for geothermal energy.”
ONGC started drilling for the Puga Valley geothermal power project in Ladakh, India last August 2022. The initial drilling results indicated high-pressure steam at 100 degrees Celsius after about a week of drilling operations. ONGC had recently shared an update on the project, stating that drilling had been paused for winter but will resume by April 2023.
The Puga Valley geothermal power project is potentially the first geothermal power plant in India. For the first phase of the project, the plan is to drill two wells at approximately 1000 meters depth to power a small-scale 1-MW pilot plant. According to Nawang Thinless, a renewable energy expert and coordinator for ONGC, Ladakh has a geothermal potential of about 200 MW
Source: Livemint
