Promotion of Local Planning - Hydropower

Small hydropower is a local energy resource, which can be usefully harnessed for rural energy demands from small rivers, where there is a gradient of a few meters and the flow rate is more than a few litres per second. Although the amount of available energy is site specific, most developing countries have abundant unexploited potential, which can provide energy for a large proportion of isolated rural communities.

Unlike the shaft power needed for old applications of hydro energy (water wheels), electricity generation requires:

• modern, faster, more powerful and efficient machines
• modern controls and instruments
• better planning and more careful installation methodologies and approaches
• appropriate operation and management arrangement within the communities to guarantee their sustainability.

Thus, electricity is a modern commodity with great advantages but also more demanding and with some risks if it is not handled properly.

The experience of Practical Action indicates that small hydropower technology is one of the small-scale renewable energy technologies most adaptable to local conditions, with great potential for sustainability. It uses local energy resources - water which is well known and understood by communities. Introduced properly, and within a sympathetic policy framework, it can promote local technology and skills. Small-scale hydro energy schemes can be entirely operated and managed by the communities, reducing costs and making an efficient use of human and natural resources.