Hydropower Dreams Fade On Green Concerns

Photo retrieved from: www.seagullhydropower.com

“India’s hydropower projects are in troubled waters. Once touted as an important engine for power capacity addition, the share of hydropower in total installed generation capacity has hit a historic low of 22 per cent.

And, it is expected to slow down further, as the sector is mired in controversies and technical problems. So much so, the country is set to miss even the revised 11th Plan capacity addition target of 8,237 Mw.

While hydropower, along with nuclear, is regarded as a cleaner source of energy, environmental and social concerns have impacted the sector’s growth, since the projects are invariably located in environmentally fragile regions. With a little over 5,000 Mw added during the five-year period ending March 31, 2012, capacity addition in the sector could be lower than the 7,886 Mw added in the 10th Plan period. At 37,367 Mw, it is currently 22 per cent of the total 167,077 Mw installed capacity.

The country’s biggest hydropower producer, government-owned NHPC, would not be able to meet its 3,000 Mw capacity target for the current Plan, says its chairman, S K Garg. And, the country’s biggest power producer, NTPC, that had hoped to make it big in hydropower projects, has been forced to go slow. “We may not be very aggressive in hydro but we will continue to pursue it,” says NTPC chairman Arup Roychoudhury.”

Read more: Business Standard