Small hydel plants to empower rural India

Small hydel plants to empower rural IndiaAccording to Umesh Raheja, Director, Raheja Power, promoting small-scale hydro projects should be on top priority where extension of grid system is comparatively uneconomicalRecent status of hydel power sector in India and key developmentsIndia has immense economically exploitable hydropower potential of over 84,000 MW at 60 per cent load factor (148,700 MW installed capacity), with Brahamaputra, Indus and Ganges basins contributing about 80 per cent of it. In addition to this, small, mini and micro hydropower schemes (with capacity of less than 3 MW) have been assessed to have 6781.81 MW of installed capacity. Out of this enormous hydro potential, India has harnessed only about 15 per cent so far, with another 7 per cent under various stages of development. The remaining 78 per cent remains un-harnessed due to many issues and barriers to the large scale development of Hydropower in the subcontinent.Various studies have established the ideal thermal:hydro power mix for India at to be at 60:40. The present mix of 75:25 is creating much problem in the Indian power system with country facing energy shortage of 9.3 per cent and peaking shortage of 12.8 per cent. The total requirement ending 11th Plan is set to be 2,06,000 MW. The current installed thermal and hydropower capacity stands at 66 per cent and 26 per cent of the total power generated with 83,272 and 32,726 MW respectively. Remaining 8 per cent of 10,091 MW is achieved from other forms including wind and nuclear. The current captive generation amounts to 14,636 MW. India’s power system is divided into five major region namely, the northern region, western region, southern region, eastern region and north-eastern region, with each region facing separate issues. While the eastern and north-eastern regions are power abundant, the northern and western regions have greater power demands. The hydropower potential is largest in NE region with 98 per cent of it still untapped. Northern, eastern, western and southern regions have 79 per cent, 77 per cent, 23 per cent and 33 per cent untapped hydropower potential respectively.The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) and Ministry of Power (MoP) are the nodal agencies involved in power sector planning and development at the central level. Being a concurrent subject under the Indian Constitution, electricity is generated, transmitted, maintained and developed both by central and state authorities, with the primary role with the states. With the central policy providing the overall direction for development, states determine the power generation, distribution and management systems. The development of water resources lies with the state governments. Since hydropower development involves water resources, the responsibility of its development stays primarily with the state agencies.Advantages of hydropower and reasons for its slow developmentHydropower has immense benefits and has been brought forward as a preferred option for power generation over the last decade. The reasons for these can be summed as follows:

Abundant potential of hydropower development in India Relative independence from international market like oil prices, hydropower involves no extra foreign exchange outgo
Hydropower is a no-inflation power as water – the ‘raw material’ for power generation is free of inflation Environment friendly
Hydropower projects support socio-economic development of remote areas as the project site is developed
Hydropower is cost-effective and renewable form of energyIt has additional benefits like irrigation, flood control, tourism etc.
Even with these benefits, Hydropower has had slow development in India especially in last few decades. This has primarily been due to:
Long gestation period
Time consuming process for project clearances
Until recently, the national focus has been on thermal generation
Highly capital intensive and absence of committed funds
Poor financial health of State Electricity Boards (SEBs)
Technical constraints due to complex geological nature of the projects
Inter-state disputes as water is a state subject
Absence of long tenure loans makes it difficult for private investors
Advance against depreciation is disallowed
14 per cent return on equity (ROE) is not attractive enough for investors
Dearth of competent contracting agencies to construct the project site.
ChallengesTechnical issues

To expedite early execution of hydro projects, bankable Detailed Project Report (DPR) based on detailed survey should be prepared to avoid geological uncertainties. Survey & investigation and analysis of geological, geo-morphological, geo-electrical, hydrological data etc. should be done at the time of preparation of a DPR itself in order to minimise the impact of risks. It is, therefore, necessary to expedite survey and investigations with the latest state-of-the-art technology and prepare a shelf of projects for execution. The quality of DPRs should be of high standard which should infuse confidence in the national/international developers to take up the execution of projects without losing time in rechecks etc at the same time, contract monitoring as distinct from project monitoring should be emphasised and land acquisition and infrastructure development be settled and completed before the start of the project.

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