Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA) and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has signed a MoU, which would result in development of India's first Geothermal Plant.
The Project will be developed in Balrampur district of the State. According to Economic Times, "The MoU was signed by CREDA director Shailendra Shukla and NTPC's executive director Ajit Kumar in the presence of secretary-energy Aman Singh, regional executive director-NTPC S N Ganguly and MDs of electricity companies of Chhattisgarh,"
"State government has granted permission for the installation of a Geothermal Power Plant at Tattapani area of the Balrampur district to the NTPC. It will be first Geothermal Power Plant of the country," A government official said.
Also according to ET, NTPC has already started exploratory and preparatory work in this area. It has also started talks with ONGC and other international organisations for drilling operation. The Project is expected to start within the next 24 months.
Geothermal the Untapped Resource in India
Schiagintweit documented ninety-nine well-known thermal springs in India in 1864. R. D. Oldham in the 19th century published the monumental work of his father, T. Oldham (1882) where an inventory of three hundred thermal springs covering the entire country. La Taiche published a list of mineral springs in 1918. Subsequently, studies on the hot springs were carried out by Hollam (1905), Heim and Ganssar (1938), Pranvananda (1949), Ghosh (1954), Seitz and Tewari (1959), Deb (1964), Chatterjee and Guha (1964). The Ministry of Power and Irrigation constituted a committee on 'Hot Springs' in the year 1963 to explore the commercial utilization potential of thermal springs in India. The committee inducted members from the GSI, NGRI and Jadavpur University, Kolkata. All the thermal springs of India were classified on the basis of their geo-tectonic setup and grouped into six Geothermal Provinces as follows:
- I. Himalayan Province - Tertiary Orogenic belt with Tertiary magmatism
- II. Areas of Faulted blocks - Aravalli belt, Naga-Lushi, West coast regions and Son-Narmada lineament.
- III. Volcanic arc - Andaman and Nicobar arc.
- IV. Deep sedimentary basin of Tertiary age such as Cambay basin in Gujarat.
- V. Radioactive Province - Surajkund, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand.
- VI. Cratonic province - Peninsular India
