Special workshop of stakeholder consultation organized on National Small Hydropower Policy 2024
A special consultation meeting of Stakeholders was organised here today to deliberate upon the Draft National Small Hydropower Policy, 2024. The policy is proposed by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) Government of India and chaired by the Secretary Ministry of New and Renewal Energy, GoI, Bhupinder S Bhalla along with Chief Secretary Prabodh Saxena here today.
Speaking on the occasion, Sh. Bhalla said that it was the preliminary meeting held to discuss the bottlenecks and take views of and deliberate with the Independent Power Producers (IPPs), Representatives of the Ministry of Forests and Climate Change, Developers Associations, and Financial Institutions for setting up the small hydro projects between 5 MW to 25 MW in the country.
He said that the MNRE was working towards achieving 500 GW of installed electric capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030. So far a total of 201.8 Gigawatt (GW) of non-fossil capacity has been installed in the country as on March 2004. Though, the Solar Energy, to some extent, wind energy was being given added priority, yet Asia holds the lead in both installed capacity and potential of SHP with China and Europe as frontrunners. He said that before finalizing the Policy it was pertinent to take views of the Stakeholders so that the needs of IPPs could be pondered upon and fulfilled.
He assured that the MNRE will look into to provide incentives in the form of Central financial assistance to the State Government to promote SHP as the untapped potential needs to be harnessed at the earliest.
He said that India has an estimated SHP potential of over 21 GW with approximately 5 GW installed capacity with significant development in Himachal Pradesh.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Secretary Prabodh Saxena said that the State has made a remarkable advancement in Hydel Generation. The SHP needs to be given boost, he said adding that SHPs upto 10 MW are exempted from the catchment area treatment plan and therefore this exemption should be enhanced upto 25 MW to increase the hydro power generation thus contributing in the development of the State.
Sh. Saxena said that over the years we have successfully commissioned the SHPs that have placed a crucial role in meeting the energy demands of the people. Sh. Saxena said that the identified potential of SHP so far was 3850 MW and the State has allotted 880 SHPs of 2950 MW capacity. Out of these, 150 projects with a combined capacity of 783 MW have been commissioned successfully. Additionally, 43 projects with a capacity of 120 MW were under construction whereas 189 projects totaling 1005 MW were at various stages of clearance.
The Chief Secretary said that banks and financial institutions were hesitant to finance hydro projects and therefore it is imperative to consider including SHPs under the Priority Sector Lending (PSL) guidelines.
He also urged to reinstate the CFA which will not only alleviate the financial burden on developers but also encourage the initiation and completion of numerous stalled projects. This support would be instrumental in accelerating the pace of development, fostering innovation and driving economic growth in the renewable non-fossil sources.
He raised worry upon considerable delay in obtaining forest clearing approvals leading to delay in setting up the projects and urged MNRE to advocate for expediting the issues with the department of Environment and Forests, GoI.
Prof Arun Kumar from IIT Roorkee gave a detailed presentation and besides deliberating with the stakeholders on various challenges as variant upfront premiums, technical and financial challenges, transmission, clearances and approvals also summarized the consultations with his expert views and exhorted the stakeholders to mail the same to the MNRE every technical issues and suggestions to be incorporated in the Draft Small Hydro Policy.
Earlier, the President of Federation of Small Hydro, Arun Sharma also detailed about the various issues to be taken up on priority stressed for a robust policy addressing the grievances of the small hydro power producers.
Dr. Sangita M Kasture, advisor and senior scientist from MNRE welcomed the dignitaries and also detailed about the event.
Delegates from state governments and IPP from the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Kerela, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttrakhand, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tripura were also deliberated during the consultation meet and gave their valuable inputs focusing much on the abolition of Free power/royality and the upfront premium which should be reasonable and uniform
MD, HPSEBL, Harikesh Meena, Director, HIMURJA, Shubhkaran Singh, senior scientists, MNRE Sh. S K Sahi were also present on the occasion amongst others.
