Will India's first Geothermal Energy plant come up in Tattapani?

NTPC is collaborating with Geological Survey of India to look into building India’s first geothermal plant at Tattapani at Chattisgarh. Note India does not have a commercial geothermal plant yet. Geothermal energy has not really caught on despite its obvious advantage. It requires no fuel, works 24 hours a day and is totally green. Read more about geothermal energy advantages and disadvantages. Geothermal energy is mostly concentrated in USA and Indonesia because they have ideal conditions for the generation of geothermal energy. Major earthquake fault lines are ideal places to build geothermal energy plants. They make use of the earth’s heat to generate energy.

Geothermal energy does not require drastically specialist equipment but does require drilling expertise, similar to oil and gas drilling. It is a bit risky for commercial developers, as sometimes the investment in drilling may not yield the desired results leading to investment losses. This is again similar to oil and gas drilling where E&P activities may not always result in discovery of actual fuel.

NTPC will make a detailed project report taking the help of GSI for the proposed geothermal energy plant. However I am not sure how far these efforts will progress, given the typical lethargy in government owned projects and initiatives. Geothermal energy plants are not easy to do a feasibility and build. But once built they produce energy at extremely cheap prices for a very long time as can be seen in California.