micro hydropower development

Despite the parroting of 83,000 MW of hydro-potential, the country has not succeeded to generate even 700 MW till date, after 100 years of installation of first hydropower plant ( the Pharping Mini Hydro), providing access to electricity to just one-third of its population through the central grid systems, that too with perennial load shedding.

Even if the development of the mega hydropower projects seems so discouraging, the country possesses bright prospects for the development of micro/mini-hydropower systems to electrify vast rural settlements that lie scattered in nooks and corners of the country for solid and sound rural development.

The country’s topography has about 17 per cent of the land area occupied by hills and mountains, and about 6,000 small rivers and rivulets originate and

flow along these terrain. In this backdrop, the prospects for the development of

the decentralized micro-hydro installations seem huge to cater basic rural energy services.

With the establishment of Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC) as the Government of Nepal’s (GoN’s) nodal agency for the overall development of renewable energy technologies (RETs) in 1996, the promotion of RETs seem to have progressed tremendously. As regards MH development, it has been assessed to have some 15 MW of electricity generation from micro/mini hydropower installations in the country. At present, there are policy frameworks, guidelines, decentralized institutions and programmes, capable private sector of manufacturers, installation companies, consultants, service centers and NGOs for the growth and development of the sector.

The rural energy planning and implementation in some of the geographical configurations of Baglung district under the ‘Integrated Development of Rural Energy Systems through the Pocket Area Approach’, the first of its kind ever practiced so effectively and

successfully.

Under the approach, the entire (whole) geographic area comprising of several settlements, villages, wards or VDCs or their parts are considered for programme intervention, irrespective of the political boundaries, to promote the rural energy systems development. The approach attempts to cater basic energy services to all the households of the whole area considered by means of decentralized rural energy systems based on renewable resources, micro-hydro being the principal technology. The special social mobilization package is implemented prior to technological intervention in order to organize, sensitize and make the community people aware about the soon-to-start technological intervention. The planning for the promotion of the targeted technologies is done through the participatory bottom-up rural energy planning process with the local bodies as the real facilitators and development catalyst of the people.

Under the approach, based on the geographical configuration, the Urja Arc, Urja Upatyaka, Urja Strip, Urja Gaon, Urja Corridor etc have been developed in Baglung district, which have been instrumental to assure access to basic rural energy services by all the households of the pockets by means of decentralized energy systems, particularly through installation of some six dozen micro/pico hydropower plants already generating more than 1000 kW (1 MW) electricity. The successful implementation of the approach has demonstrated that if the rural energy planning and implementation is carried out deliberately and specifically to meet the rural energy needs, even the rural energy technologies that are small in scale, decentralized, indigenous and are based on locally available natural resources, could be instrumental in completely addressing the problem of energy provision not only in a village or VDC but in the entire geographical set-up comprising of several VDCs in a sustainable way with community’s full ownership and management.

As all the households of the identified area are assured access to basic rural energy services, the approach brings out social justice, inclusiveness and harmony, mainstreaming of all in the local development process in the course of mobilization of the common property resource.

As micro-hydro systems remain the principal technologies under the approach, the installation of several systems within the pocket create opportunities for the development of mini-grid systems in the area and their eventual connection to the national grid. The development of mini-grid systems in the Urja Upatyaka in south-west Baglung, also the first of its kind in the country, that interconnects seven micro- hydropower systems to each other with a total bundled capacity of 132 kW, could be considered the advantage-by-product of the successful rural energy planning and implementation through the ‘Pocket Area Approach’.

The contribution of micro hydro electricity for local environment conservation, promotion of health and hygiene and education and awareness raising has been widely realized.