Friday, May 23, 2008
Micro Hydro in Peru
This video demonstrates how Practical Action's micro-hydro work is meeting local communities essential energy needs, and improving their living standards.
Banki Turbine Hydro System
Built from scrap steel and using home-brew electronics, this hydro-turbine generates a steady 500W at 240VAC all winter long.
Hydro Power in Kenya
Here is a short video on a micro-hydro power plant in Kenya. The power is used for various things, including television and refrigeration.
Turbine from scrap
This turbine is made from scrap that uses the water fall off of an existing dam. It is a more traditional water wheel type turbine. It has paddles made from PVC pipe halves and appears to be making a decent amount of power.
Sundermann Hydro Turbine
This Turbine is unique, because it uses lift to turn the turbine rather momentum like the typical hydro turbine. The advantage of this design is that it is supposed to be able to produce power in low head low flow situations, where other wise hydro power would not be an option.
How Nepali flag was born?
Meaning of Nepali Flag:The flag of Nepal is the only national flag which is not rectangular, being based upon two separate pennants which belonged to rival branches of the Rana dynasty, which formerly ruled the country. The two pennants were first joined in the last century, but it was not adopted as the official flag until 1962, when a constitutional form of government was established.
The moon in the upper part represents the royal house. The sun in the lower part symbolizes a branch of the Rana family, members of which acted as prime ministers until 1961.
The charges are now said to represent the hope that Nepal itself will last as long as the sun and the moon. The style of these heavenly bodies was streamlined on December 16, 1962. The coat of arms still portrays these charges with facial features. Crimson is deemed the national color.
Motto on their coat of arms: "The mother and the Mother Earth are more important than the heavenly kingdom."
This flag is like most Hindu flags - a pennon. It is believed that, God Vishnu had organized the Nepali people and given them this flag, with the sun and moon as emblems on it.
Small is Still Beautiful
Small is Still Beautiful
By Maurice Malanes
Irony
One irony of "development" is imbalance. Development tends to be concentrated more in the metropolis and other urban centers as rural villages are left out in the cold. Big hydroelectric dams, for example, displace indigenous folk, but these folk remain literally in the dark, as their villages are the least priority in government electrification programs and other social services.
A case in point are the indigenous Ibaloi in Benguet Province in northern Philippines. In the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds of Ibaloi families were dislocated when the 75-MW Ambuklao and 100-MW Binga dams were built along the Agno River. Linked to the Luzon grid, the power generated by the two dams has helped supply the power needs of mining companies and cities as far as Manila, which is more than 300 kilometers south of the Ibaloi community in Bokod town.
On the other hand, the Ibaloi communities around the two dams were energized only in the 1980s. Government up to now has yet to properly compensate the Ibaloi folk the two dams displaced.
The Ibaloi's wounds have not yet healed and government has embarked again on a new bigger dam downstream of the Ambuklao and Binga dams. It is feared that the 345-MW San Roque Multi-purpose Dam Project, which began construction in February 1998 and is more than half-done, will submerge three Ibaloi villages (population: 20,000) once the dam's water level rises from siltation by erosion and mine wastes from upstream.
Once the dam is completed in 2003, the power to be generated will help reinforce the Luzon grid, which supplies electricity to Manila and all of Luzon's urban centers. The displaced Ibaloi folk are, therefore, not the priority in the power-generation project, which was conceived as a government "flagship project" to help respond to a power crisis the country faced in 1995 and 1996.
Indigenous peoples elsewhere share the tragic saga of the Ibaloi. In Africa's Senegal River Valley, the World Bank-funded Manantali and Diama dams did not only displace 100,000 households. The Bank approved a US$38 million loan for the dam turbine's installation and operation without providing for a water-management plan to prevent water-borne diseases .
Malaria and schistosomiasis rose dramatically since the Manantali and Diama dams were built. It was estimated that adequate measures to manage the flows from the dam could reduce deaths by 2,500 from 8,000 lives taken each year. Newly created water bodies, such as irrigation canals and ponds, breed schistosomiasis-bearing snails, which seasonal fluctuations in salt inflows used to control.
The Senegal and Ibaloi folk's horror stories of "damnation" are replicated in other dam constructions in Brazil, Namibia, India's Narmada River Valley, Malaysia's Bakun community, Laos, Nepal, and China.
Elsewhere, conflicts have become so intense that they have led to violence and killings. The International Rivers Network (IRN), an independent global body monitoring mega-dams worldwide, has reported the killing in October 1997 of Fulgencio Manoel da Silva, an articulate Brazilian activist who helped lead protests against the Itaparica Dam, which uprooted 7,000, including Da Silva's family, from their homes and farms.
What happened to Da Silva is familiar to Filipinos who had also mourned the killing in April 1980 of Kalinga tribal chief Macliing Dulag, one of the staunch leaders in the opposition against a World Bank-funded series of dams along the Chico River in northern Philippines.
Also in Brazil, over 6,200 people, including the last of the Ofaie Xavante Indian tribe, were forced out of their homes when the 2,250-square kilometer Porto Primavera Dam reservoir was filled with water in May 1998. The Sao Paulo Electric Company has settled only 340 out of the 1,700 affected families.
A proposed hydroelectric dam also continues to be a dagger pointed at the heart of a community of 15,000 Himba people in Namibia. The dam is expected to flood the Himba lands, thus, threatening to erase the Himbas' culture and way of life.
The world's most ambitious dam thus far, China's Three Gorges Dam, according to IRN, will displace 1.9 million people, who include both indigenous and non-indigenous folk. The 400-mile long, 600-foot high and two-kilometer wide dam will inundate 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,352 villages, and 650 factories. IRN has warned that those who are going to be displaced are poised to resist.
We have been talking about big dams alone and one thing is clear: human lives and health, ecology and biodiversity, and cultures have to be sacrificed just to produce power. We need enormous power to support not only basic needs, but also consumerist lifestyles in the metropolis.
People in metropolitan societies debate whether a microwave oven is a luxury or a basic need. But chances are village folk in remote hinterlands have not seen the light of Thomas Alva Edison's invention - the incandescent electric bulb.
Thinking small
Amid the global madness for bigness, the small-is-beautiful alternative offers promise and hope for upland folk who simply dream to replace their kerosene lamps and pine pith with incandescent or flourescent bulbs.
The upland village of Lon-oy in San Gabriel town, La Union Province in northern Philippines is a good example. For the 1,000 or so Lon-oy villagers, March 31, 2001 was the first day of the rest of their lives. This was the day when they first saw the light from an electric bulb after Bishop Joel Pachao of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines blessed and inaugurated a 15-kilowatt micro-hydro power plant the community helped build.
Almost three years in the making, the micro-hydro power project will now finally light up the nights of the remote upland village after Bishop Pachao ceremoniously switched on the power from a power house at the foot of a ravine along the Lon-oy River. With a maximum average of 80 watts allotted per household, electricity from the project will be used mainly for lighting. Television sets and other appliances such as refrigerators and ovens are not allowed. Otherwise, the community will have to worry about breakdowns due to power overload.
Lighting up the 130 households of the village alone has begun to change the lives of the villagers. Instead of burning their midnight kerosene lamps, public school teachers can now work more comfortably under flourescent electric lights, doing their lesson plans or checking papers. Broom-makers, who used to be at the mercy of the daylight, can now make brooms for sale until late evening. Sitting around a winnower filled with legumes and beans to peel off, members of a family also exchange stories and riddles, sing songs, or simply converse before they go to bed.
Early in the morning, members of an association of village women can start baking bread in their liquefied petroleum gas-fueled oven in their newly built bakery, which the Department of Labor and Employment funded. Some women are now thinking of other livelihood projects, which they can do under their bright light at dawn or late evening. These other livelihoods will augment their income from farming.
On the lighter side, at least one villager has said he can now see the sweet smile and other "body language" of his wife under the flourescent light.
Lon-oy is one of 10,000 villages not covered by the state-run National Power Corporation's grid areas. In its Philippine Energy Plan, the Department of Energy had targeted to energize all of the 1,409 municipalities (at least the town proper) by 1996, all of the 35,213 barangays or villages by 2010 and another 10.2 million households by 2018. The program also aims to bring electricity to an additional 889,912 households by 2025, bringing the total number of households to be energized to 11.1 million (Department of Energy, 1996). Under this plan Lon-oy would be one of the villages to be energized by 2010. One problem is this is only on paper.
There are other hitches in the government's rural electrification program. And this is not only because government has to displace people as a result of building mega-dams or sacrificing public health in exchange for coal-fired power plants. Rural electrification through the National Power Corporation's conventional grid areas is too costly for rural folk to afford. Rural villagers will hardly be able to pay the cost of electricity once the National Power Corporation seeks to impose bills based on rates that seek to regain investments and earn profit. The best alternative for off-grid areas, where the poorest of the poor live, are community-based and community-run micro-hydro power projects, so says Victoria Lopez of the nongovernment Sibat (Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya - Wellspring of Science and Technology).
Citing success stories other than Lon-oy's, Lopez says community-based and community-managed small renewable energy projects are the least costly, thus, more affordable and sustainable. For villages such as northern Philippines' Cordillera hinterlands, the most appropriate and cheapest source of energy are mountain springs and tributaries of the upland region's seven major river systems.
Empowering
Lon-oy's success was no picnic. The project's triumph was not as simple as procuring the funds, buying the equipment, and installing the facility. It also involved educating and organizing the community folk, a job which the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Philippines undertook to prepare the community. That most of the community folk are Episcopalians helped the Diocese a lot in its organizing and education work.
For its part, Sibat, through its engineers, did the technical part of the project and helped train community folk on repair and maintenance. It was also through Sibat's prodding that the Department of Energy approved and channeled some P1.5 million (US$750,000) directly to the community.
But the most empowering of all was the community folk's participation in the whole project -- from planning to implementation. The community folk have also invested a counterpart in the project - their labor. Almost every one can claim ownership of the project, which came about only after the men, women and children picked up their picks and shovels to dig the diversion canal; hauled gravel, sand and cement, and did other back-breaking labor.
In working for the project, the community folk resorted to their age-old tradition of cooperative self-help or reciprocal labor, which is still very much alive when someone builds or moves a house or when one villager plants and harvests rice. Through their initiative, members of the community decided that each household would render 50 days of labor for the project.
Luz Marzan, a mother of seven, for example, worked 26 days, mostly hauling gravel and sand. Her husband and two children rendered a total of 24 days. Some opted to work for more than 50 days, the excess of which they sold to other families who, for one reason or another, could not render manual labor. Teachers and other public servants, for instance, could not help out except on weekends. Thus, as the community decided by consensus, other members of the community could pay P100 (US$2) per household in place of a day's labor.
Having invested their time and sweat, the Lon-oy villagers have a big stake in the project. They therefore cannot afford to let their efforts go to waste. This is where sustainability begins.
Community-run, simple micro-hydro power projects can really change lives and lighten the burden of rural folk. An earlier micro-hydro power project built in the equally far-flung sub-village of Ngibat, Tinglayan town in Kalinga Province, also in northern Philippines, was the first success story, which has now been told and retold. Jointly initiated by the nongovernment Montanosa Research and Development Center and Sibat, the project has helped debunk the perception that electrification is possible only through government's framework of bigness.
The Ngibat micro-hydro power project, which can generate five kilowatts of electricity, does not only light up the community of 32 households. With a maximum 40 watts allotted per household, the project, which was inaugurated in January 1994, can also run a community rice mill (Sibat Case Study, 2000). This facility has helped unburden women and children who, by tradition, pound rice every morning and afternoon. Freed from such tedious labor, the women can now engage in other livelihoods while the children have more time to review their school lessons.
The project has also helped speed up the work of local blacksmiths who work at an average of eight hours a day ten times a month, or three to four months a year. The micro-hydro power project provides for the 492 kwh/month total power needs of an electric grinder, drill press, and hand drill.
Another livelihood the micro-hydro power project enhanced is the manufacture of basi or sugarcane wine. Since 1997, it has powered a sugarcane presser, which is twice faster than a carabao-(water buffalo) drawn wooden presser. The sugarcane extract is fermented into wine, which is now the main income-generating livelihood of 26 households.
A simple micro-hydro power project, as the Lon-oy and Ngibat projects show, can really change lives. If it can help create rural livelihoods and raise incomes, rural folk need not migrate and help congest already crowded cities. It will also be unnecessary for rural folk to sell their working carabao (water buffalo) and mortgage their house and land to pay their way for jobs overseas, which, as experience shows, do not always turn out to bring the much-sought "better life".
Management
The micro-hydro power project's empowering impact can be seen not only in economic terms. This is also exhibited in the increased capacity of the community to manage and sustain the project.
One management scheme both the Ngibat and Lon-oy community folk internalized is watershed protection. Both communities have learned early on that unless they protect their watersheds, their rivers will run dry and no water will run the turbines and the generators in their powerhouses. Community folk, therefore, don't clear crucial watersheds for their swidden farms.
Another is how the community sets policies and guidelines on how to use and maintain the project. In Lon-oy, the community folk have computed and decided by consensus that each household must pay to the community cooperative P35 (US$0.71) a month for the maintenance and upkeep of the facility. For the same purpose, Ngibat community folk have set a monthly flat rate of P22 (US$0.45) per household. The monthly dues of both Ngibat and Lon-oy communities are 15 to 20 times lower than the minimum dues collected by commercial electric cooperatives in the urban and other grid areas. For humanitarian reasons, Ngibat's old widows and others who, for one reason or another, are unable to pay in cash or in kind, are exempted or subsidized by the other more productive members of the community.
The community's direct hand in running and setting policies for the project is empowering enough for the local folk. This is practically local autonomy and democratic governance at work.
Brain Drain
Their technical support no doubt has helped in the success of the micro-hydro power projects. But the engineers of Sibat prefer to remain low-key and humble. Why? Because they say the whole success of a project lies in how well organized and educated the members of a community are.
But the technical know-how of Sibat's engineers is equally crucial. And they don't just have the know-how; they also have the commitment to serve poor rural folk. This makes them a rare breed amid the brain-drain of technical experts who prefer to work for multinational corporations within and outside the Philippines. Lured by higher pay, many of the country's engineers are helping develop new technologies and products and produce wealth for multinational corporations.
The three technical engineers of Sibat - mechanical engineer Frank Taguba, civil engineer Paul Tabiolo and electrical engineer Manuel Maputi - may not have thick wallets. But the three, whom Sibat describes as "RE (renewable energy) engineers," all say they are rich in psychic rewards. During an inauguration of another micro-hydro power project in a village in Kalinga Province, Frank Taguba, for example, hugged a colleague and cried. But his tears were tears of joy - joy in seeing the concrete result of a project he helped work out.
These engineers prefer to remain incognito. But in the hearts of simple hinterland folk, whose hard lives a five or 15-kilowatt micro-hydro power facility helped ease, Sibat's engineers stand taller than politicians who promise heaven when they are courting votes.
The other engineers who opt to work for multinationals cannot be blamed. In a country, which has yet to appreciate how to maximize the skills of its own experts, the option left for other engineers is to search for job opportunities elsewhere. Result: the country is drained of its own talents and experts.
But with a few committed engineers like Sibat's Taguba, Tabiolo and Maputi, hope is not lost on the Philippines. People like them can help transform the lives of needy village folk with the click of an electric switch from a micro-hydro-powered generator.
The Alternative Game
Filipino activists protesting the construction of mega-dams that displace thousands of indigenous peoples often encounter a common remark and question in public forums: "You are good at exposing the threats of big dams and opposing these. But what do you propose as alternatives?"
Chances are these "expose-oppose" activists are tongue-tied on what to say and how to answer such remarks and questions. But the simple answer lies in one secret of good journalism: show rather than tell, that is.
Documenting and showing how "success stories" such as Lon-oy's and Ngibat's were made and disseminating these to as many people as possible can help convince others that there are indeed alternatives to "development projects" governments often ram down people's throats. In so doing, "expose-oppose". activists can be transformed into "expose-oppose-and-propose" activists.
For want of any information about alternatives, ordinary folk often accept without any informed judgment "development projects" governments impose. But informed about other options, particularly the "small and gentle" alternatives, people in the grassroots can be wiser.
Many policy makers, who are also in the dark about people- and earth-friendly alternatives, may yet have to see the wisdom of the small, the gentle and the beautiful. It is people and our planet after all, so says E.F. Schumacher, who matter in development. Not profit at all costs. Otherwise, that would be global harakiri.
By Maurice Malanes
When the late British economist E.F.Schumacher came out with his bestseller, Small is Beautiful, in the 1970s, many economists dismissed him as a wishful thinker,whose suggested development formula appealed only to hippies. But his proposed development schemes towards "the small and the gentle" are now again gaining adherents.
Schumacher has said that ever-bigger machines and ever-bigger development structures do not only leave bigger wounds and bigger scars on our planet; they also tend to concentrate wealth in a few hands. Amid the current backlash and conflicts created by ever-bigger development projects rammed down the throats of many people, Schumacher, if he were alive today, would probably tell the proponents of bigness, "I told you so."
Many Third World countries are now obsessed with bigness. From Malaysia and Indonesia to the Philippines, governments are seeking to build the biggest airport and seaport, the biggest mining operation, the biggest golf course, and the biggest mega-mall. Erecting all these enormous structures requires equally enormous amounts of energy and power; so governments have to build super-big hydroelectric dams, geothermal plants and coal-fired power plants.
Given its growth targets and projections, the Philippines, for example, expects that electricity sales will increase from 33,532 GWh in 1996 to 148,112 GWh in 2010 and to 426,349 GWh in 2025. Demand for electricity will follow the same trend. From 5,855 MW in 1996, electricity demand will shoot up to 25,564 MW in 2010 and 73,587 MW in 2025, translating to an average growth rate of 11.1 percent between 1996 and 2010, and 7.3 percent between 2010 and 2025.
To meet the growing demand for electricity, a total of 92,138 MW must be generated between 1996 and 2025. The Philippine government has thus firmed up projects totaling 12,978 for commissioning from 1996 to 2005. For this period, major capacity additions include 8,660 MW from coal-fired plants; 6,500 MW from gas-fired plants; 5,515 MW, geothermal plants; 4,732 MW, large and semi-large hydro plants; and 3,947 MW from renewable energy sources .
All these figures show that as societies "progress" (which means as societies continue to consume more and more goods), the more we need to squeeze our planet to produce the energy to produce the goods we continue to consume. Unfortunately, as Schumacher has reiterated a now familiar line from Mahatma Gandhi, our planet can provide for all of our needs but not for our greed. But the proponents of globalized free trade continue to exploit human greed to the point of creating more and more artificial "needs" for the market of new goods. The result is disastrous as societies become obsessed with bigness under the illusory hope that bigness can help satisfy human greed.
Bigness, however, continues to cause ever-bigger problems for both people and the environment.
Schumacher has said that ever-bigger machines and ever-bigger development structures do not only leave bigger wounds and bigger scars on our planet; they also tend to concentrate wealth in a few hands. Amid the current backlash and conflicts created by ever-bigger development projects rammed down the throats of many people, Schumacher, if he were alive today, would probably tell the proponents of bigness, "I told you so."
Many Third World countries are now obsessed with bigness. From Malaysia and Indonesia to the Philippines, governments are seeking to build the biggest airport and seaport, the biggest mining operation, the biggest golf course, and the biggest mega-mall. Erecting all these enormous structures requires equally enormous amounts of energy and power; so governments have to build super-big hydroelectric dams, geothermal plants and coal-fired power plants.
Given its growth targets and projections, the Philippines, for example, expects that electricity sales will increase from 33,532 GWh in 1996 to 148,112 GWh in 2010 and to 426,349 GWh in 2025. Demand for electricity will follow the same trend. From 5,855 MW in 1996, electricity demand will shoot up to 25,564 MW in 2010 and 73,587 MW in 2025, translating to an average growth rate of 11.1 percent between 1996 and 2010, and 7.3 percent between 2010 and 2025.
To meet the growing demand for electricity, a total of 92,138 MW must be generated between 1996 and 2025. The Philippine government has thus firmed up projects totaling 12,978 for commissioning from 1996 to 2005. For this period, major capacity additions include 8,660 MW from coal-fired plants; 6,500 MW from gas-fired plants; 5,515 MW, geothermal plants; 4,732 MW, large and semi-large hydro plants; and 3,947 MW from renewable energy sources .
All these figures show that as societies "progress" (which means as societies continue to consume more and more goods), the more we need to squeeze our planet to produce the energy to produce the goods we continue to consume. Unfortunately, as Schumacher has reiterated a now familiar line from Mahatma Gandhi, our planet can provide for all of our needs but not for our greed. But the proponents of globalized free trade continue to exploit human greed to the point of creating more and more artificial "needs" for the market of new goods. The result is disastrous as societies become obsessed with bigness under the illusory hope that bigness can help satisfy human greed.
Bigness, however, continues to cause ever-bigger problems for both people and the environment.
Irony
One irony of "development" is imbalance. Development tends to be concentrated more in the metropolis and other urban centers as rural villages are left out in the cold. Big hydroelectric dams, for example, displace indigenous folk, but these folk remain literally in the dark, as their villages are the least priority in government electrification programs and other social services.
A case in point are the indigenous Ibaloi in Benguet Province in northern Philippines. In the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds of Ibaloi families were dislocated when the 75-MW Ambuklao and 100-MW Binga dams were built along the Agno River. Linked to the Luzon grid, the power generated by the two dams has helped supply the power needs of mining companies and cities as far as Manila, which is more than 300 kilometers south of the Ibaloi community in Bokod town.
On the other hand, the Ibaloi communities around the two dams were energized only in the 1980s. Government up to now has yet to properly compensate the Ibaloi folk the two dams displaced.
The Ibaloi's wounds have not yet healed and government has embarked again on a new bigger dam downstream of the Ambuklao and Binga dams. It is feared that the 345-MW San Roque Multi-purpose Dam Project, which began construction in February 1998 and is more than half-done, will submerge three Ibaloi villages (population: 20,000) once the dam's water level rises from siltation by erosion and mine wastes from upstream.
Once the dam is completed in 2003, the power to be generated will help reinforce the Luzon grid, which supplies electricity to Manila and all of Luzon's urban centers. The displaced Ibaloi folk are, therefore, not the priority in the power-generation project, which was conceived as a government "flagship project" to help respond to a power crisis the country faced in 1995 and 1996.
Indigenous peoples elsewhere share the tragic saga of the Ibaloi. In Africa's Senegal River Valley, the World Bank-funded Manantali and Diama dams did not only displace 100,000 households. The Bank approved a US$38 million loan for the dam turbine's installation and operation without providing for a water-management plan to prevent water-borne diseases .
Malaria and schistosomiasis rose dramatically since the Manantali and Diama dams were built. It was estimated that adequate measures to manage the flows from the dam could reduce deaths by 2,500 from 8,000 lives taken each year. Newly created water bodies, such as irrigation canals and ponds, breed schistosomiasis-bearing snails, which seasonal fluctuations in salt inflows used to control.
The Senegal and Ibaloi folk's horror stories of "damnation" are replicated in other dam constructions in Brazil, Namibia, India's Narmada River Valley, Malaysia's Bakun community, Laos, Nepal, and China.
Elsewhere, conflicts have become so intense that they have led to violence and killings. The International Rivers Network (IRN), an independent global body monitoring mega-dams worldwide, has reported the killing in October 1997 of Fulgencio Manoel da Silva, an articulate Brazilian activist who helped lead protests against the Itaparica Dam, which uprooted 7,000, including Da Silva's family, from their homes and farms.
What happened to Da Silva is familiar to Filipinos who had also mourned the killing in April 1980 of Kalinga tribal chief Macliing Dulag, one of the staunch leaders in the opposition against a World Bank-funded series of dams along the Chico River in northern Philippines.
Also in Brazil, over 6,200 people, including the last of the Ofaie Xavante Indian tribe, were forced out of their homes when the 2,250-square kilometer Porto Primavera Dam reservoir was filled with water in May 1998. The Sao Paulo Electric Company has settled only 340 out of the 1,700 affected families.
A proposed hydroelectric dam also continues to be a dagger pointed at the heart of a community of 15,000 Himba people in Namibia. The dam is expected to flood the Himba lands, thus, threatening to erase the Himbas' culture and way of life.
The world's most ambitious dam thus far, China's Three Gorges Dam, according to IRN, will displace 1.9 million people, who include both indigenous and non-indigenous folk. The 400-mile long, 600-foot high and two-kilometer wide dam will inundate 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,352 villages, and 650 factories. IRN has warned that those who are going to be displaced are poised to resist.
We have been talking about big dams alone and one thing is clear: human lives and health, ecology and biodiversity, and cultures have to be sacrificed just to produce power. We need enormous power to support not only basic needs, but also consumerist lifestyles in the metropolis.
People in metropolitan societies debate whether a microwave oven is a luxury or a basic need. But chances are village folk in remote hinterlands have not seen the light of Thomas Alva Edison's invention - the incandescent electric bulb.
Thinking small
Amid the global madness for bigness, the small-is-beautiful alternative offers promise and hope for upland folk who simply dream to replace their kerosene lamps and pine pith with incandescent or flourescent bulbs.
The upland village of Lon-oy in San Gabriel town, La Union Province in northern Philippines is a good example. For the 1,000 or so Lon-oy villagers, March 31, 2001 was the first day of the rest of their lives. This was the day when they first saw the light from an electric bulb after Bishop Joel Pachao of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines blessed and inaugurated a 15-kilowatt micro-hydro power plant the community helped build.
Almost three years in the making, the micro-hydro power project will now finally light up the nights of the remote upland village after Bishop Pachao ceremoniously switched on the power from a power house at the foot of a ravine along the Lon-oy River. With a maximum average of 80 watts allotted per household, electricity from the project will be used mainly for lighting. Television sets and other appliances such as refrigerators and ovens are not allowed. Otherwise, the community will have to worry about breakdowns due to power overload.
Lighting up the 130 households of the village alone has begun to change the lives of the villagers. Instead of burning their midnight kerosene lamps, public school teachers can now work more comfortably under flourescent electric lights, doing their lesson plans or checking papers. Broom-makers, who used to be at the mercy of the daylight, can now make brooms for sale until late evening. Sitting around a winnower filled with legumes and beans to peel off, members of a family also exchange stories and riddles, sing songs, or simply converse before they go to bed.
Early in the morning, members of an association of village women can start baking bread in their liquefied petroleum gas-fueled oven in their newly built bakery, which the Department of Labor and Employment funded. Some women are now thinking of other livelihood projects, which they can do under their bright light at dawn or late evening. These other livelihoods will augment their income from farming.
On the lighter side, at least one villager has said he can now see the sweet smile and other "body language" of his wife under the flourescent light.
Lon-oy is one of 10,000 villages not covered by the state-run National Power Corporation's grid areas. In its Philippine Energy Plan, the Department of Energy had targeted to energize all of the 1,409 municipalities (at least the town proper) by 1996, all of the 35,213 barangays or villages by 2010 and another 10.2 million households by 2018. The program also aims to bring electricity to an additional 889,912 households by 2025, bringing the total number of households to be energized to 11.1 million (Department of Energy, 1996). Under this plan Lon-oy would be one of the villages to be energized by 2010. One problem is this is only on paper.
There are other hitches in the government's rural electrification program. And this is not only because government has to displace people as a result of building mega-dams or sacrificing public health in exchange for coal-fired power plants. Rural electrification through the National Power Corporation's conventional grid areas is too costly for rural folk to afford. Rural villagers will hardly be able to pay the cost of electricity once the National Power Corporation seeks to impose bills based on rates that seek to regain investments and earn profit. The best alternative for off-grid areas, where the poorest of the poor live, are community-based and community-run micro-hydro power projects, so says Victoria Lopez of the nongovernment Sibat (Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya - Wellspring of Science and Technology).
Citing success stories other than Lon-oy's, Lopez says community-based and community-managed small renewable energy projects are the least costly, thus, more affordable and sustainable. For villages such as northern Philippines' Cordillera hinterlands, the most appropriate and cheapest source of energy are mountain springs and tributaries of the upland region's seven major river systems.
Empowering
Lon-oy's success was no picnic. The project's triumph was not as simple as procuring the funds, buying the equipment, and installing the facility. It also involved educating and organizing the community folk, a job which the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Philippines undertook to prepare the community. That most of the community folk are Episcopalians helped the Diocese a lot in its organizing and education work.
For its part, Sibat, through its engineers, did the technical part of the project and helped train community folk on repair and maintenance. It was also through Sibat's prodding that the Department of Energy approved and channeled some P1.5 million (US$750,000) directly to the community.
But the most empowering of all was the community folk's participation in the whole project -- from planning to implementation. The community folk have also invested a counterpart in the project - their labor. Almost every one can claim ownership of the project, which came about only after the men, women and children picked up their picks and shovels to dig the diversion canal; hauled gravel, sand and cement, and did other back-breaking labor.
In working for the project, the community folk resorted to their age-old tradition of cooperative self-help or reciprocal labor, which is still very much alive when someone builds or moves a house or when one villager plants and harvests rice. Through their initiative, members of the community decided that each household would render 50 days of labor for the project.
Luz Marzan, a mother of seven, for example, worked 26 days, mostly hauling gravel and sand. Her husband and two children rendered a total of 24 days. Some opted to work for more than 50 days, the excess of which they sold to other families who, for one reason or another, could not render manual labor. Teachers and other public servants, for instance, could not help out except on weekends. Thus, as the community decided by consensus, other members of the community could pay P100 (US$2) per household in place of a day's labor.
Having invested their time and sweat, the Lon-oy villagers have a big stake in the project. They therefore cannot afford to let their efforts go to waste. This is where sustainability begins.
Community-run, simple micro-hydro power projects can really change lives and lighten the burden of rural folk. An earlier micro-hydro power project built in the equally far-flung sub-village of Ngibat, Tinglayan town in Kalinga Province, also in northern Philippines, was the first success story, which has now been told and retold. Jointly initiated by the nongovernment Montanosa Research and Development Center and Sibat, the project has helped debunk the perception that electrification is possible only through government's framework of bigness.
The Ngibat micro-hydro power project, which can generate five kilowatts of electricity, does not only light up the community of 32 households. With a maximum 40 watts allotted per household, the project, which was inaugurated in January 1994, can also run a community rice mill (Sibat Case Study, 2000). This facility has helped unburden women and children who, by tradition, pound rice every morning and afternoon. Freed from such tedious labor, the women can now engage in other livelihoods while the children have more time to review their school lessons.
The project has also helped speed up the work of local blacksmiths who work at an average of eight hours a day ten times a month, or three to four months a year. The micro-hydro power project provides for the 492 kwh/month total power needs of an electric grinder, drill press, and hand drill.
Another livelihood the micro-hydro power project enhanced is the manufacture of basi or sugarcane wine. Since 1997, it has powered a sugarcane presser, which is twice faster than a carabao-(water buffalo) drawn wooden presser. The sugarcane extract is fermented into wine, which is now the main income-generating livelihood of 26 households.
A simple micro-hydro power project, as the Lon-oy and Ngibat projects show, can really change lives. If it can help create rural livelihoods and raise incomes, rural folk need not migrate and help congest already crowded cities. It will also be unnecessary for rural folk to sell their working carabao (water buffalo) and mortgage their house and land to pay their way for jobs overseas, which, as experience shows, do not always turn out to bring the much-sought "better life".
Management
The micro-hydro power project's empowering impact can be seen not only in economic terms. This is also exhibited in the increased capacity of the community to manage and sustain the project.
One management scheme both the Ngibat and Lon-oy community folk internalized is watershed protection. Both communities have learned early on that unless they protect their watersheds, their rivers will run dry and no water will run the turbines and the generators in their powerhouses. Community folk, therefore, don't clear crucial watersheds for their swidden farms.
Another is how the community sets policies and guidelines on how to use and maintain the project. In Lon-oy, the community folk have computed and decided by consensus that each household must pay to the community cooperative P35 (US$0.71) a month for the maintenance and upkeep of the facility. For the same purpose, Ngibat community folk have set a monthly flat rate of P22 (US$0.45) per household. The monthly dues of both Ngibat and Lon-oy communities are 15 to 20 times lower than the minimum dues collected by commercial electric cooperatives in the urban and other grid areas. For humanitarian reasons, Ngibat's old widows and others who, for one reason or another, are unable to pay in cash or in kind, are exempted or subsidized by the other more productive members of the community.
The community's direct hand in running and setting policies for the project is empowering enough for the local folk. This is practically local autonomy and democratic governance at work.
Micro-hydro bias
Sibat's Victoria Lopez does not mind hiding her bias for micro-hydro power. For her, micro-hydro power, compared to other renewable energy sources, remains the cheapest and the most appropriate for off-grid remote upland villages. It can also electrify an entire village at least cost, compared to solar power, for example, which has less capacity. Of course, the latter has its use, too, particularly in areas where there are no rivers. But in upland villages with rivers and tributaries, micro-hydro power is the most superior.
Micro-hydro power has another edge. Equipment needed such as the turbine can be locally fabricated, thus helping promote and develop local technology. An engineer from the government-run Pangasinan State University in northern Philippines, for example, fabricated the turbine used in the Lon-oy project. In case of a breakdown, local technicians can easily repair or replace a locally- made equipment. Not so with solar panels, which are imported.
Companies in Western countries are now cashing in on the trend towards developing earth-friendly renewable energy. To Sibat, it is best if the Philippines, or any Third World country for that matter, does not fall prey to becoming a mere market of equipment and gadgets from the North. Even if crude, a country's technology, according to Sibat, must grow. And this cannot happen if a country contents itself with being just a market of technology and equipment from the North.
Ninety-five percent of equipment and gadgets used for all of Sibat-aided micro-hydro power projects are manufactured locally. This only proves that given the opportunity, national technologies can flourish.
Unfortunately, local technologies fail to thrive because Third World governments, such as the Philippines, prefer to contract overseas companies to build big dams, if not coal-fired or geothermal power plants. These companies do not only bring in their experts and consultants. They also bring in their technologies and gadgets. Under this arrangement, these companies are helping create markets for their home countries' technology and gadgets and facilities. This stifles the growth of national technologies.
Sibat's Victoria Lopez does not mind hiding her bias for micro-hydro power. For her, micro-hydro power, compared to other renewable energy sources, remains the cheapest and the most appropriate for off-grid remote upland villages. It can also electrify an entire village at least cost, compared to solar power, for example, which has less capacity. Of course, the latter has its use, too, particularly in areas where there are no rivers. But in upland villages with rivers and tributaries, micro-hydro power is the most superior.
Micro-hydro power has another edge. Equipment needed such as the turbine can be locally fabricated, thus helping promote and develop local technology. An engineer from the government-run Pangasinan State University in northern Philippines, for example, fabricated the turbine used in the Lon-oy project. In case of a breakdown, local technicians can easily repair or replace a locally- made equipment. Not so with solar panels, which are imported.
Companies in Western countries are now cashing in on the trend towards developing earth-friendly renewable energy. To Sibat, it is best if the Philippines, or any Third World country for that matter, does not fall prey to becoming a mere market of equipment and gadgets from the North. Even if crude, a country's technology, according to Sibat, must grow. And this cannot happen if a country contents itself with being just a market of technology and equipment from the North.
Ninety-five percent of equipment and gadgets used for all of Sibat-aided micro-hydro power projects are manufactured locally. This only proves that given the opportunity, national technologies can flourish.
Unfortunately, local technologies fail to thrive because Third World governments, such as the Philippines, prefer to contract overseas companies to build big dams, if not coal-fired or geothermal power plants. These companies do not only bring in their experts and consultants. They also bring in their technologies and gadgets. Under this arrangement, these companies are helping create markets for their home countries' technology and gadgets and facilities. This stifles the growth of national technologies.
Brain Drain
Their technical support no doubt has helped in the success of the micro-hydro power projects. But the engineers of Sibat prefer to remain low-key and humble. Why? Because they say the whole success of a project lies in how well organized and educated the members of a community are.
But the technical know-how of Sibat's engineers is equally crucial. And they don't just have the know-how; they also have the commitment to serve poor rural folk. This makes them a rare breed amid the brain-drain of technical experts who prefer to work for multinational corporations within and outside the Philippines. Lured by higher pay, many of the country's engineers are helping develop new technologies and products and produce wealth for multinational corporations.
The three technical engineers of Sibat - mechanical engineer Frank Taguba, civil engineer Paul Tabiolo and electrical engineer Manuel Maputi - may not have thick wallets. But the three, whom Sibat describes as "RE (renewable energy) engineers," all say they are rich in psychic rewards. During an inauguration of another micro-hydro power project in a village in Kalinga Province, Frank Taguba, for example, hugged a colleague and cried. But his tears were tears of joy - joy in seeing the concrete result of a project he helped work out.
These engineers prefer to remain incognito. But in the hearts of simple hinterland folk, whose hard lives a five or 15-kilowatt micro-hydro power facility helped ease, Sibat's engineers stand taller than politicians who promise heaven when they are courting votes.
The other engineers who opt to work for multinationals cannot be blamed. In a country, which has yet to appreciate how to maximize the skills of its own experts, the option left for other engineers is to search for job opportunities elsewhere. Result: the country is drained of its own talents and experts.
But with a few committed engineers like Sibat's Taguba, Tabiolo and Maputi, hope is not lost on the Philippines. People like them can help transform the lives of needy village folk with the click of an electric switch from a micro-hydro-powered generator.
The Alternative Game
Filipino activists protesting the construction of mega-dams that displace thousands of indigenous peoples often encounter a common remark and question in public forums: "You are good at exposing the threats of big dams and opposing these. But what do you propose as alternatives?"
Chances are these "expose-oppose" activists are tongue-tied on what to say and how to answer such remarks and questions. But the simple answer lies in one secret of good journalism: show rather than tell, that is.
Documenting and showing how "success stories" such as Lon-oy's and Ngibat's were made and disseminating these to as many people as possible can help convince others that there are indeed alternatives to "development projects" governments often ram down people's throats. In so doing, "expose-oppose". activists can be transformed into "expose-oppose-and-propose" activists.
For want of any information about alternatives, ordinary folk often accept without any informed judgment "development projects" governments impose. But informed about other options, particularly the "small and gentle" alternatives, people in the grassroots can be wiser.
Many policy makers, who are also in the dark about people- and earth-friendly alternatives, may yet have to see the wisdom of the small, the gentle and the beautiful. It is people and our planet after all, so says E.F. Schumacher, who matter in development. Not profit at all costs. Otherwise, that would be global harakiri.
Micro-hydro power: the basics
How does it work?
Water from the river is channelled through a settling basin, which helps to remove sediment that could harm the turbine. The water then flows into the Forebay Tank where it is directed downhill through a pipe called a penstock. When the water reaches the bottom, it drives a specially designed turbine to produce the electricity.
Water from the river is channelled through a settling basin, which helps to remove sediment that could harm the turbine. The water then flows into the Forebay Tank where it is directed downhill through a pipe called a penstock. When the water reaches the bottom, it drives a specially designed turbine to produce the electricity.
What does it cost?
Costs vary depending upon the particular project, but as a rough guide, these projects cost just over £800 per kilowatt of power generated. So a system with a capacity of six kilowatts - enough to drive a mill and provide electric light to a community of 20 families - would cost about £5,000.
Once the system is in operation, local people pay a small charge to use the electricity. This covers maintenance and the eventual cost of replacement.
Why is it needed?
Of course, every community’s particular needs are different. But in general, access to energy is a vital stage in the development of remote villages like these.
It can lead to swift and significant improvements in education, sanitation, healthcare and the overall standard of living. These benefits are achieved both directly - as in the provision of light - and indirectly - as the time and money that people save is redirected into other projects.
How long will it last?
Micro-hydro systems like these are designed to operate for a minimum of twenty years if they are properly looked after. That’s why we train local people to build and maintain their own system. And by making a small charge for use, communities can accumulate enough money to pay for the replacement of the unit at the end of its useful life.
Once schemes are set up, they should continue to function indefinitely without any more external funding.
What’s the environmental impact?
Unlike traditional power stations that use fossil fuels, micro-hydro generators have practically no effect on the environment. And because they don’t depend on dams to store and direct water, they’re also better for the environment than large-scale hydro-electric stations.
In fact, by reducing the need to cut down trees for firewood and increasing farming efficiency, micro-hydro has a positive effect on the local environment.
Plant's cost (Year Vs. $)
WORLD RENEWABLE ENERGY CONGRESS VI
INVITED PAPER
Micro-hydro power: an option for socio-economic development
By Dr Smail Khennas, and Andrew Barnett
The lack of energy supplies in rural areas is a chronic problem. In many developing countries less than 10% of the rural population has access to electricity. Rural electrification through conventional means such as grid connection or diesel generators is very costly. Fortunately, abundant water resources for energy production are available in some poor countries.
Decentralized small-scale water power or micro-hydro schemes (defined as plant between 10kW and 100 kW) are a particularly attractive option in many rural areas. Water is a traditional source of power in some parts of Nepal, Peru, Sri Lanka etc. The paper highlights the importance of micro-hydro power in the socio-economic development of isolated hilly and mountain areas. The paper is based on cases drawn from Asia, Latin America and Africa
Micro hydro is perhaps the most mature of the modern small-scale decentralised energy supply technologies used in developing countries. There are thought to be tens of thousands of plant in the “micro” range operating successfully in China[1], and significant numbers are operated in wide ranging countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Vietnam and Peru. This experience shows that in certain circumstances micro hydro can be profitable in financial terms, while at others, even unprofitable plant can exhibit such strong positive impacts on the lives of poor people.
One of the most important findings to emerge from the study of this experience is that micro hydro plant can achieve a wide range of quite different objectives. But much confusion and misunderstanding arises when all micro hydro plant are lumped together. Analytically, it is therefore important to judge the viability of each micro hydro investment in terms of a specific objective. Similarly, in the formulation of government or donor policy, it is important not to expect micro hydro to achieve many, often conflicting, objectives. For instance it is probably not possible to provide electricity to very poor people in remote locations through micro hydro and make a high return on capital
1. The market for micro-hydro power :
Supplying improved energy services to people for the first time is difficult; but supplying such services profitably to very poor people who live far away from roads and the electricity grid pose a particularly difficult challenge. However micro hydro compares well with other energy supply technologies in these difficult markets. But despite this, micro hydro appears to have been relatively neglected by donors, the private sector and governments in the allocation of resources and attention. In the past rural electrification by means of grid extension was the option favoured by donors.
But the relative neglect of micro hydro has also been in part due to the fact that the circumstances under which it is financially profitable, has not been systematically established, particularly in ways that investors find credible. In addition, while it is known that the growth and sustainability of the micro-hydro sub-sector depends on certain types of infrastructure and institutional investments, it was often not clear which elements of this “enabling environment” is essential nor how it is best financed.
This contribution attempts to rectify these omissions by analysing and then synthesising the experience of micro hydro over many years across a broad range of developing countries. Primary evidence was obtained from Peru, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and to a lesser extent Mozambique. On the basis of this evidence an attempt has been made to establish “best practice” in terms of the implementation and operation of sustainable installations.
The sample was drawn from comprehensive databases of micro-hydro plants in each of the five countries. It was selected using a typology which combined end uses (productive uses, electricity for lighting, combined end uses etc.) with types of ownership (Community-led projects, Projects implemented by central bodies such as the utilities, and Projects initiated by private entrepreneurs).
Although Zimbabwe and Mozambique have relatively few micro hydro plant operating, it was decided to include them in the sample to illustrate some of the special issues that are faced by countries trying to start programmes. The implications of experience elsewhere for these two countries is brought together in section.
2. Technology demonstration, social infrastructure, or small enterprise?
The field of micro hydro is “evolving”, particularly in relation to the motivation of project developers. In recent times most of the initial installations in each country might be said to be the result of “technology push”. That is, plants were installed to test their technical viability and their acceptability. This experience has established the technical reliability of the micro hydro systems, reduced their cost, and has resulted in substantial technical improvement. Micro hydro is now a mature technology that has been greatly improved by electronic load controllers, low cost turbine designs, the use of electric motors as generators[2], and the use of plastics in pipe work and penstocks.
The next group of projects is characterised by investments in micro hydro that were seen as part of the “social infrastructure” more akin to the provision of health services, roads and schools. This has often meant that this experience has generated little information on the capital and operating costs or cash flow returns of the investment, particularly of a form and quality that would be regarded as reliable by potential investors in conventional financial institutions. Indeed many of the promoters of this type of project justify their work solely in terms of contribution to social justice, the quality of life of marginalized people, and the environment. In Sri Lanka, for instance, many micro hydro plant have been installed primarily to ‘improve the quality of life by providing electric light’. And in Peru the key question for many project developers was ‘how long will the plant last, rather than how high is its rate of return or how quickly the capital will be paid back’.
More recently support programmes have returned to what might be called an older vision, when micro hydro are seen primarily in terms of securing livelihoods and the development of small profit making businesses. This is in part an admission that, like the previous attempts at rural electrification through grid extension, the sustainability of grant-based programmes is limited, and ways must be found to attract private capital if these programmes are to have anything but a marginal impact. However, Nepal has shown that small, almost subsistence businesses can survive using micro hydro power to mill grain. Over 900 micro hydro plant had been installed in Nepal by 1996, and over 80% of these were for grinding grain. In Nepal, in recent years there has been a quite rapid take up of the small (1 kW) “peltric” sets for generating small amounts of electricity. Introduced in the early 1990’s there were said to be over 250 in the first five years[3].
These very different starting points have important implications for what is regarded as success, and what performance indicators that have been used in their evaluation. Micro hydro as “social infrastructure” uses the approaches and indicators appropriate to schemes for the supply of drinking water, health clinics and schools. But micro hydro as “physical infrastructure” uses the approaches applied to electric power generation more generally, and to such investments as the provision of roads, and irrigation systems. Even more recently micro hydro has been seen in terms of small and medium enterprise development, and the role that such enterprises can play in “securing livelihoods”.
INVITED PAPER
Micro-hydro power: an option for socio-economic development
By Dr Smail Khennas, and Andrew Barnett
The lack of energy supplies in rural areas is a chronic problem. In many developing countries less than 10% of the rural population has access to electricity. Rural electrification through conventional means such as grid connection or diesel generators is very costly. Fortunately, abundant water resources for energy production are available in some poor countries.
Decentralized small-scale water power or micro-hydro schemes (defined as plant between 10kW and 100 kW) are a particularly attractive option in many rural areas. Water is a traditional source of power in some parts of Nepal, Peru, Sri Lanka etc. The paper highlights the importance of micro-hydro power in the socio-economic development of isolated hilly and mountain areas. The paper is based on cases drawn from Asia, Latin America and Africa
Micro hydro is perhaps the most mature of the modern small-scale decentralised energy supply technologies used in developing countries. There are thought to be tens of thousands of plant in the “micro” range operating successfully in China[1], and significant numbers are operated in wide ranging countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Vietnam and Peru. This experience shows that in certain circumstances micro hydro can be profitable in financial terms, while at others, even unprofitable plant can exhibit such strong positive impacts on the lives of poor people.
One of the most important findings to emerge from the study of this experience is that micro hydro plant can achieve a wide range of quite different objectives. But much confusion and misunderstanding arises when all micro hydro plant are lumped together. Analytically, it is therefore important to judge the viability of each micro hydro investment in terms of a specific objective. Similarly, in the formulation of government or donor policy, it is important not to expect micro hydro to achieve many, often conflicting, objectives. For instance it is probably not possible to provide electricity to very poor people in remote locations through micro hydro and make a high return on capital
1. The market for micro-hydro power :
Supplying improved energy services to people for the first time is difficult; but supplying such services profitably to very poor people who live far away from roads and the electricity grid pose a particularly difficult challenge. However micro hydro compares well with other energy supply technologies in these difficult markets. But despite this, micro hydro appears to have been relatively neglected by donors, the private sector and governments in the allocation of resources and attention. In the past rural electrification by means of grid extension was the option favoured by donors.
But the relative neglect of micro hydro has also been in part due to the fact that the circumstances under which it is financially profitable, has not been systematically established, particularly in ways that investors find credible. In addition, while it is known that the growth and sustainability of the micro-hydro sub-sector depends on certain types of infrastructure and institutional investments, it was often not clear which elements of this “enabling environment” is essential nor how it is best financed.
This contribution attempts to rectify these omissions by analysing and then synthesising the experience of micro hydro over many years across a broad range of developing countries. Primary evidence was obtained from Peru, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and to a lesser extent Mozambique. On the basis of this evidence an attempt has been made to establish “best practice” in terms of the implementation and operation of sustainable installations.
The sample was drawn from comprehensive databases of micro-hydro plants in each of the five countries. It was selected using a typology which combined end uses (productive uses, electricity for lighting, combined end uses etc.) with types of ownership (Community-led projects, Projects implemented by central bodies such as the utilities, and Projects initiated by private entrepreneurs).
Although Zimbabwe and Mozambique have relatively few micro hydro plant operating, it was decided to include them in the sample to illustrate some of the special issues that are faced by countries trying to start programmes. The implications of experience elsewhere for these two countries is brought together in section.
2. Technology demonstration, social infrastructure, or small enterprise?
The field of micro hydro is “evolving”, particularly in relation to the motivation of project developers. In recent times most of the initial installations in each country might be said to be the result of “technology push”. That is, plants were installed to test their technical viability and their acceptability. This experience has established the technical reliability of the micro hydro systems, reduced their cost, and has resulted in substantial technical improvement. Micro hydro is now a mature technology that has been greatly improved by electronic load controllers, low cost turbine designs, the use of electric motors as generators[2], and the use of plastics in pipe work and penstocks.
The next group of projects is characterised by investments in micro hydro that were seen as part of the “social infrastructure” more akin to the provision of health services, roads and schools. This has often meant that this experience has generated little information on the capital and operating costs or cash flow returns of the investment, particularly of a form and quality that would be regarded as reliable by potential investors in conventional financial institutions. Indeed many of the promoters of this type of project justify their work solely in terms of contribution to social justice, the quality of life of marginalized people, and the environment. In Sri Lanka, for instance, many micro hydro plant have been installed primarily to ‘improve the quality of life by providing electric light’. And in Peru the key question for many project developers was ‘how long will the plant last, rather than how high is its rate of return or how quickly the capital will be paid back’.
More recently support programmes have returned to what might be called an older vision, when micro hydro are seen primarily in terms of securing livelihoods and the development of small profit making businesses. This is in part an admission that, like the previous attempts at rural electrification through grid extension, the sustainability of grant-based programmes is limited, and ways must be found to attract private capital if these programmes are to have anything but a marginal impact. However, Nepal has shown that small, almost subsistence businesses can survive using micro hydro power to mill grain. Over 900 micro hydro plant had been installed in Nepal by 1996, and over 80% of these were for grinding grain. In Nepal, in recent years there has been a quite rapid take up of the small (1 kW) “peltric” sets for generating small amounts of electricity. Introduced in the early 1990’s there were said to be over 250 in the first five years[3].
These very different starting points have important implications for what is regarded as success, and what performance indicators that have been used in their evaluation. Micro hydro as “social infrastructure” uses the approaches and indicators appropriate to schemes for the supply of drinking water, health clinics and schools. But micro hydro as “physical infrastructure” uses the approaches applied to electric power generation more generally, and to such investments as the provision of roads, and irrigation systems. Even more recently micro hydro has been seen in terms of small and medium enterprise development, and the role that such enterprises can play in “securing livelihoods”.
3. Competition in the allocation of scarce resources:
This means that there are hard choices to be made in the allocation of resources. Investments that are primarily intended to increase the adoption of micro hydro are likely to need to be financially viable and will therefore be located where sales to the grid are possible (and profitable), or where there are concentrations of effective demand (or there are so-called “anchor customers” who can pay for the bulk of the power supplied). Whereas programmes that are intended to primarily increase the “access” of specific groups of people to improved energy supplies are likely to be located were resource-poor live and this will frequently be in more remote areas.
Micro hydro developers and the financial institutions that they work with have to make choices between these two extremes of profitability and social impact. There is likely to be a middle ground where social impacts can be achieved profitably, but its size is not yet known. The review of programmes in Nepal and Sri Lanka both suggest that they have been explicitly motivated by ideas of social justice and fairness. Certainly rural people in many countries can be expected to ask why shouldn’t they be entitled to the levels of subsidy provided to urban dwellers.
But what is clear, is that many rural people will remain without electricity unless there is some redistribution of income of some sort from urban to rural areas.
There is a parallel here with arguments between the advocates of micro hydro and Ministries of Energy and their conventional utilities. Proponents of micro hydro are often disappointed that utilities will not take them more seriously. Certainly micro hydro often faces unfair competition from a highly subsidised grid, and from subsidised fossil fuels, but there is a genuine trade off between maximising the access of people to “efficient and affordable energy”, and doing so in those places where micro hydro (and other renewable energy) is the least cost. The scarce resource is not energy, but the capital to make energy useful. If the objective is to provide electricity to as many people as possible (rather than to distribute electricity evenly across the country), the most effective way of doing it will be through extensions of the grid. Similarly where utilities have very severe limits on capital, the ‘opportunity cost’ of capital at the margin rises to very high levels, explaining perhaps why they then opt for diesel generators rather than hydro (with its higher initial capital cost).
4. The economics of micro-hyro power and Participative approaches:
In the examples examined in the five countries, the capital cost of micro hydro ranges from US$ 655 in Nepal to US$5,630 per installed kilowatt, in constant 1998 prices[4]. The data for the full sample is set out in the following table.
An important conclusion is therefore that the costs per installed kilowatt are higher than the figures usually cited in the literature. This is partly due to the difficulty analysts have in establishing full costs on a genuinely comparative basis. A significant part of micro hydro costs can be met with difficult-to-value labour provided by the local community as “sweat equity”; meaningful dollar values for local costs are difficult to establish when they are inflating and rapidly depreciating relative to hard currencies; and there is little consistency in defining the boundaries of the systems being compared (for instance, how much of the distribution cost, or house wiring, is included, how much of the cost of the civil works contribute to water management and irrigation).
But more fundamentally the comparison of actual costs at the ‘micro’ level of individual plants (as indeed of any de-centralised energy supply systems) can also be misleading. Successful programmes require investments in the systems necessary for training, repair, marketing. The critical issue is that these tasks exhibit substantial economies of scale, in that the cost per micro hydro plant installed falls as the number of plant increases. Comparisons based on average costs will therefore be strongly influenced by the number of plant built.
Estimates of these ‘macro’ costs associated with developing and supporting a programme – sometimes referred to as “system overhead costs”[5] are also difficult to establish, particularly as many of the costs associated with Research and Development and the training of engineering workshops are “sunk costs” which took place over many years.
Participative approaches :
If the cost of micro hydro is too high for marginalized people, the financial cost can be reduced by involving the community in the process of project development. The cases studies show that these participative approaches have been used extensively in micro hydro development.
Community participation enables costs to be reduced in three ways:
It allows people to contribute their labour (or other communally owned asset such as land[6]) to the scheme. If people are under employed the opportunity cost of this labour can be close to zero, and anyway its use need not involve the transfer of cash. This is often described as “sweat equity” in that by contributing its labour the community gains a share in the ownership of the scheme;
involvement of the whole community enables the richer elements (richer households, small mills and shop owners) to carry the bulk of the costs and thereby make a service available to the poorer people in the community either through actual cross subsidy to the selling price (through a ‘lifeline tariff’) or by allowing them into the scheme at the marginal cost of including extra consumers rather than the average cost;
increasing the number of people involved in a scheme can reduce the cost to everyone when micro hydro schemes exhibit economies of scale.
However, while involvement of the community is certainly a necessary condition for the success of some types of schemes, and can lower costs, the process itself is costly and time consuming. These costs are associated with understanding the needs of different users (for instance including both men and women), developing community motivation and “ownership”, and in training. Such processes may take a number of years and can add significantly to the costs of the NGO or other agency involved in project development. If a single entrepreneur or a municipality is able to raise all the capital, it may well be that they can avoid the cost of community development and still have a successful micro hydro scheme.
Estimates of these ‘macro’ costs associated with developing and supporting a programme – sometimes referred to as “system overhead costs”[5] are also difficult to establish, particularly as many of the costs associated with Research and Development and the training of engineering workshops are “sunk costs” which took place over many years.
Participative approaches :
If the cost of micro hydro is too high for marginalized people, the financial cost can be reduced by involving the community in the process of project development. The cases studies show that these participative approaches have been used extensively in micro hydro development.
Community participation enables costs to be reduced in three ways:
It allows people to contribute their labour (or other communally owned asset such as land[6]) to the scheme. If people are under employed the opportunity cost of this labour can be close to zero, and anyway its use need not involve the transfer of cash. This is often described as “sweat equity” in that by contributing its labour the community gains a share in the ownership of the scheme;
involvement of the whole community enables the richer elements (richer households, small mills and shop owners) to carry the bulk of the costs and thereby make a service available to the poorer people in the community either through actual cross subsidy to the selling price (through a ‘lifeline tariff’) or by allowing them into the scheme at the marginal cost of including extra consumers rather than the average cost;
increasing the number of people involved in a scheme can reduce the cost to everyone when micro hydro schemes exhibit economies of scale.
However, while involvement of the community is certainly a necessary condition for the success of some types of schemes, and can lower costs, the process itself is costly and time consuming. These costs are associated with understanding the needs of different users (for instance including both men and women), developing community motivation and “ownership”, and in training. Such processes may take a number of years and can add significantly to the costs of the NGO or other agency involved in project development. If a single entrepreneur or a municipality is able to raise all the capital, it may well be that they can avoid the cost of community development and still have a successful micro hydro scheme.
5. Dissemination Strategies and the key agents:
In most cases it would appear that the governments in the countries examined do not have policies specifically for the development of micro hydro. Although some had policies to encourage rural electrification, these were usually through grid extension. Where there were policies to support a particular technology, such as solar photovoltaic, these tended to be driven by external donors. The main elements of the current expansion strategy are summarised in the table in appendix.
Agents of the state have played a significant, if intermittent role in encouraging micro hydro. In Nepal the Agricultural Development Bank appears to have been the lead institution, which then drew on the services of NGO. In Sri Lanka the utility (the Ceylon Electricity Board) similarly expressed an early interest in micro hydro and then drew on the services of an NGO and local consultant engineers.
The international financial institutions (both multilateral and bilateral) now appear to be taking an interest in Micro hydro. In the 1960’s and 1970’s these aid agencies invested heavily in rural electrification, but this was almost entirely through grid extensions. This experience, and particularly the sense that rural electrification was a bottomless pit of financially unsustainable projects, meant that they remained reluctant to fund more recent, decentralised, systems. However, they have begun to re-consider decentralised energy options, prompted no doubt by their new interest in renewable sources of energy[7] and by the enthusiasm of manufacturers of photovoltaics in industrialised countries.
In Sri Lanka the World Bank was persuaded to include micro hydro in its Energy Services Delivery loan, which was initially designed solely for PV. In Nepal substantial funding is now coming from Danida aimed at increasing the scale of the effort devoted to micro hydro (and PV), and to put the schemes on a more financially secure basis.
But perhaps the most important “agent” in the implementation of strategies for micro hydro have been the “project developers”. In most of the case study countries NGOs have been the main project developers as it is usually only not-for-profit agencies that can cope with the high transaction costs involved. However there are important cases where individual entrepreneurs develop their own projects. But almost regardless of the financing mechanisms or the strategies of governments and aid agencies, the critical factor has been the existence of these individuals or agencies that have had the skill to put the various elements of a micro hydro project together (technology, finance, project management, institutional structures) and the tenacity to see it through to operation.
The main forms of support – extending the concept of “intermediation”
A wide range of actions have to be brought together to ensure the success of micro hydro investments. These actions take place both at the micro level of particular investment in a hydro plant at a particular location, but they also take place at the macro level of policy formulation, and in the design and implementation of programmes of financial and other support.
In undertaking the case studies, it was found that the idea of “intermediation” offered a convenient way to group the many hundreds of tasks that were identified as necessary. This provided considerable analytical insight about how policies might be developed to ensure that these tasks were indeed performed and integrated into the costings. The approach extended the idea of “financial intermediation” and considered three additional forms of intermediation, namely technical intermediation, social intermediation and organisational intermediation.
Financial Intermediation involves putting in place all the elements of a financial package to build and operate a micro hydro plant (sometimes called “financial engineering”). It covers the transaction costs of administering loans, the assessment and assurance of the financial viability of schemes, assessment and assurance of the financial credibility of borrower, the management of guarantees, the establishment of collateral (“financial conditioning”) and the management of loan repayment. But it can also be used to cover whole schemes rather than just investment in an individual plant, and involves the “bundling” of projects together to make them attractive to finance agencies, establishing the supply of finance on a “wholesale” basis (from aid agencies, governments, development banks), and the mechanisms to convert it into a supply of retail finance (equity finance, and loan finance at the project level).
Technical Intermediation has involved the “upstream” work of improving the technical options by undertaking R and D, the importation of the technology and know-how, “down” through the development of the capacities to supply the necessary goods and services (site selection, system design, technology selection and acquisition, construction and installation of civil, electro-mechanical and electrical components, operation, maintenance, Trouble Shooting, overhaul and refurbishment).
Organisational Intermediation involved not only the initiation and implementation of the programmes, but also the lobbying for the policy change required to construct an “environment” in which micro hydro technology and the various players can thrive. This involves putting in place the necessary infrastructure, and getting the incentives right to encourage owners, contractors, and financiers.
Measuring the poverty impact of Micro hydro has recently been attempted by David Fulford, Paul Mosley and others in a study commissionned by the UK’s Department for International Development. As these authors point out, it is conceptually and empirically difficult to attribute measurable poverty impacts to relatively small investments, such as micro hydro, when there are so many other circumstances (such as climatic variation, and macro economic change) that affect the measurable poverty status of remote communities over any particular time period.
However, these researchers used a ‘second best’ approach, consisting of tracking, by partial equilibrium methods, the effects of micro-hydro on the incomes of the poor through changes in entrepreneurs’ incomes, labour incomes, consumer real incomes and backward and forward linkages. Following this approach the researchers found:
“in relation to the number of schemes in existence the poverty reduction performance of micro-hydro is impressive, particularly in Nepal and Ethiopia….micro-hydro is indeed a relatively efficient method of poverty reduction, in terms of costs per person moved across the poverty line. The poverty gap measure suggests that micro-hydro is also able to reach a number of the extremely poor….through the channel of wage employment in micro-hydro schemes themselves and linkage activities derived from those schemes. In addition, we believe that the estimates of poverty reduction from micro-hydro .. systematically understate poverty impact, as they exclude a range of very difficult to measure but important effects such as time savings from no longer having to carry kerosene or other fuel, improved education from the availability of electric light and improved health and agricultural production from drinking and irrigation water made available out of channels originally developed for micro hydro schemes.”
“On the preliminary data presented here, therefore, there would seem to be evidence enabling a poverty reduction case to be made for the promotion of micro-hydro, in particular through the policy instruments specified. Whether that indeed turns out to be the case depends on whether the estimates presented here can be validated by a broader range of data, both from the countries considered here and elsewhere”.[8]
Appendix
However, these researchers used a ‘second best’ approach, consisting of tracking, by partial equilibrium methods, the effects of micro-hydro on the incomes of the poor through changes in entrepreneurs’ incomes, labour incomes, consumer real incomes and backward and forward linkages. Following this approach the researchers found:
“in relation to the number of schemes in existence the poverty reduction performance of micro-hydro is impressive, particularly in Nepal and Ethiopia….micro-hydro is indeed a relatively efficient method of poverty reduction, in terms of costs per person moved across the poverty line. The poverty gap measure suggests that micro-hydro is also able to reach a number of the extremely poor….through the channel of wage employment in micro-hydro schemes themselves and linkage activities derived from those schemes. In addition, we believe that the estimates of poverty reduction from micro-hydro .. systematically understate poverty impact, as they exclude a range of very difficult to measure but important effects such as time savings from no longer having to carry kerosene or other fuel, improved education from the availability of electric light and improved health and agricultural production from drinking and irrigation water made available out of channels originally developed for micro hydro schemes.”
“On the preliminary data presented here, therefore, there would seem to be evidence enabling a poverty reduction case to be made for the promotion of micro-hydro, in particular through the policy instruments specified. Whether that indeed turns out to be the case depends on whether the estimates presented here can be validated by a broader range of data, both from the countries considered here and elsewhere”.[8]
Appendix
Nepal
A long standing programme based on the provision of subsidies to micro hydro through the Agricultural Development Bank of Nepal (ADBN).
The strategy was driven by NGOs and combined building up the capability of the local turbine manufacturers and the development of a number of technical improvements (the electronic load controller and the use of electric motors as turbines).
A significant part of the sector (turbines for milling grain) is financially self sustaining, and receives no subsidised support .
The current phase of the strategy involved the creation of The Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC ) in 1996 as an autonomous body under the Development Committee Act, and is overseen by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST). The mandate of AEPC is to promote renewal energy technologies to meet the needs in rural areas of Nepal. DANIDA is assisting those elements of the programme that promote micro hydro development and PV).
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