India Advances Clean Energy Push with First Geothermal Policy

India has launched its first national geothermal energy policy to explore and utilize underground heat for clean power. The policy targets 381 hot springs and 10 geothermal zones in areas like Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and Gujarat.

It offers incentives such as tax holidays, import duty exemptions, and viability gap funding. The policy also promotes partnerships with oil, gas, and mineral companies, as well as repurposing abandoned wells and using ground source heat pumps.

With 100% foreign investment, concessional loans, and international collaboration, India aims to expand its geothermal capacity. Projects can run for up to 30 years, helping the country reduce carbon emissions and support global clean energy growth.

Geothermal energy has historically been a small share of India's renewable mix, despite mapped resource potential across the Himalayan belt and other tectonically active regions. The launch of a dedicated national policy - with tax holidays, viability gap funding and provisions for repurposing legacy oil and gas wells - signals an intent to move the resource from academic study into commercial deployment.

Geothermal offers a distinct advantage over solar and wind: it produces firm, baseload power without the intermittency that drives storage requirements in variable renewables. For a grid rapidly adding solar and wind capacity, even a modest geothermal share can materially improve system balance and reduce reliance on coal for firm generation.

International precedent from Iceland, the United States, Kenya and Indonesia demonstrates that with the right regulatory environment geothermal can scale meaningfully - though upfront exploration risk and long development timelines remain core commercial challenges.

For oil and gas majors, mining companies and renewable developers assessing entry into geothermal, the commercial case rests on rigorous resource evaluation, technology-partnership selection and financing structures that appropriately price exploration risk.

Cognitud's energy transition and market intelligence teams support clients in building investment theses for emerging renewable technologies, benchmarking policy incentives across jurisdictions, and structuring the disclosures - including nature-related impact - that geothermal projects will need to attract patient capital and community support.