Research On The Decision Making For Small Hydropower Construction Projects

Small hydro offers a wide range of benefits especially for rural areas and developing countries. It has major advantages: it is renewable, it produces negligible amounts of greenhouse gases, it is the least costly way of storing large amounts of electricity, and it can easily adjust the amount of electricity produced to the amount demanded by consumers.Governments, financiers, and developers are finding new ways to fund and promote small hydropower development. Efforts are also being made to improve the exchange of ideas and technology related to small hydropower. Small hydropower stations throughout the world represent about 5 percent of the installed hydropower capacity worldwide.We expect an increased interest in small hydropower over the coming years, as it in many cases is the most economic method of renewable power generation. In addition, many countries have taken an interest in increased distributed generation, either as a good method in places of lacking infrastructure or just as an addition to the existing power supply. Along with increasing energy prices worldwide, these developments will lead to a growing need for evaluation and adaptation of energy policies and decisions making of small hydropower projects in contest of changes.The outcome of this research is a methodology for policy making in the development of small scale hydroelectric. These decisions making covers procedures for both new sites where no developments currently exist and existing sites such as small dams and canal drops which can be retrofitted with hydro generation equipment.The methodology derives from study of existing theories, literature review and analyses of typical projects followed by the extrapolation of the results to the outgoing projects for overall assessment.The framework for policy making in small hydropower development is for use at the decision making level and covers procedures study execution, energy planning, regional hydrology development, technical site evaluations, cost and economic analyses, environmental and social considerations, and finally assessment.