A significant portion of the population, particularly those living in low density scattered settlements, are still without electricity. These people depend on traditional biomass and kerosene to meet their daily energy needs.

Fortunately a large number of thinly populated settlements in the Northern Areas have access to potential sites for small and micro-hydro schemes. Hydropower’s development does not pollute environment. In addition, replacement of firewood with electricity helps control deforestation.

The market price of kerosene and LPG reaching these areas increase due to heavy transportation charges. In addition respiratory, eye and other pollution-related diseases are common due to excessive use of kerosene for lighting and wood for cooking and heating.

The present extensive use of firewood as a source of energy has led to depletion in natural resources and degraded local environment putting enormous pressure on forests in these areas. Indiscriminate cutting of trees, if allowed to continue at the current pace, will reduce further forests cover in the next few years. Deforestation results in increase in intensity of floods, droughts and other natural catastrophe.

In a typical small hydropower (SHP) unit, potential energy of water stream is used to rotate turbine. This rotational motion is converted into electrical energy through a generator. The electricity is then transmitted to a sub-station where transformers increase its voltage to allow transmission to houses. The amount of electricity, a hydropower installation produce, depends on the quantity of water passing through a turbine and height from which the water falls. The larger the flow and higher the fall, the more electricity is generated.

Rural electrification based on exploitation of local water resources plays a significant role in economic development and improvement of living standards. It has been observed that skilled workers, teachers, doctors and nurses prefer to live and work in rural areas to contribute towards improving human development indicators in rural areas well connected to nearby urban centres and where electricity and communication services are available. However they are reluctant to work in areas where there is no electricity.

Access to electricity provides women with an opportunity to improve their social and economic condition. The SHP projects benefit local environment by using a natural resource to generate the needed electricity without depleting the quantity or quality of the resource or harming aquatic fauna and flora. The monetary saving from kerosene to electricity is also considerable.

According to the World Bank, the world’s poor people spend more than 12 per cent of their total income on energy, more than four times what a middle-income family in the developed world spends.

There is no international consensus on the definition of small hydropower (SHP). In China, it can refer to capacities of up to 25 MW, in India up to 15 MW and in Sweden small means up to 1.5 MW. However, a capacity of up to 10 MW is accepted norm by the European Commission.

Within the range of small hydro-power, mini-hydro typically refers to schemes below one MW, micro-hydro below 100 kW and pico-hydro below five kW. Small hydropower is a mature technology, although innovations are continually occurring, especially in the field of electronics and controls.

Generally speaking, micro- and pico-hydro technologies are used to provide electricity to isolated communities where the electricity grid is not available, whereas mini-hydro tends to be grid connected. In most of the cases, no dam or reservoir storage is involved in pico-, micro- and mini-hydro schemes. The local resources utilised to operate the micro- and pico-hydro-power.

In fact some 300 micro and mini hydroelectric plants, installed by the private and public sector in the northern hilly areas, are supplying electricity to areas not connected with the grid. The turbines used in these plants are manufactured in local workshops. The unit cost of MHP in Pakistan was $1,000-$1,200 in 2005. The demand for all equipment components cannot be met locally. The costs of local manufacture can be reduced still further by developing local engineering capabilities and advisory services.

Once the plant is installed, the local community takes the responsibility of operation. Electricity is mainly used at night for lighting, watching TV, etc. During the day, power requirement is minimal for lighting. As a result day-time generation power help villagers in running small agro-processing plants for flour grinding, rice husking and to charge car-batteries which are mostly used for supply power for television sets for those who were not directly connected to the micro hydroelectricity supply.

The amount of electricity generated by pico-hydro unit is very small in magnitude. This allows only a small number of basic appliances to operate. The voltage in the supply line varies with the amount of flow in the channel. This creates seasonal as well as daily fluctuation in power supply, making it unsuitable for sophisticated devices. This can, however, be overcome through use of load controllers and standby batteries or generators.

A recent report by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which makes a cost comparison of different technologies to harness green energy in south Asia, proves that hydro-energy is five to ten times cheaper than wind and solar energy respectively. Assuming an efficiency of 38 per cent for the conversion of oil into electricity, each 600 kWh of electricity generated with a hydro plant is equivalent to one barrel of oil.

Sustainability criteria demand that economic decisions incorporate environmental stewardship and social justice. For the areas remotely located at considerable distance from the national grid, SHP is the most attractive option of power generation.

Unfortunately, locally manufactured turbine has no design or quality control facilities. In order to accelerate the development and enhance the performance of small hydro power, it is imperative to benchmark the work of the SHP industry to identify and adapt the proven best practices of the world leaders in the industry. The government should also encourage private-public cooperation in the SHP sector.

The federal government should provide special loans on discount and technical support to union councils and town councils for the instillation of SHP projects. If cheap hydro-power generation through small, local power generation and supply systems, can be successfully realised it would help the government save money needed for linking remote areas with the national grid.