As India braces itself for an over-ambitious Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, it also has to deliberate the prospects of developing other renewable energy resources. Of all the non-conventional renewable energy sources, small hydro represents the highest density resource and stands in the first place in generation of electricity from such sources world-wide. Also, the recent social and environmental consciousness has been responsible for shifting the focus from large hydro dams to small scale hydro power generation. It is in this backdrop that we need to look at the evidence on the potential and performance of small hydro resource to indicate whether this alternative source, like solar energy, qualifies for a national mission.

Tracing the trend of renewable energy development is impossible without taking into account the geopolitical factor of climate change. With the responsible ambition to work in line with ‘Going Green’ and ‘Sustainable Development’, India has been focussing on horizontal capacity addition from the nonconventional energy resources. But has it been an even and fair deal? On what factors has the priority list of renewable energy strategy been decided? These aspects have more impact and influence on understanding the renewable energy situation in India than the easily verifiable indicators like potential capacity and generation.

For the ease of comprehending the criteria for national mission or any other thrust of the same scale, comparing all the renewable energy resources on the verifiable parameters becomes essential.

Objectively, solar energy ranks the lowest in terms of financial viability, capacity addition, and grid application. Although the weightage given to each parameter might change the ranking, still a national mission for solar energy might not find a rational ground for justification. But then, would the others make the grade for a huge scale developmental thrust and attention? Still unaware of the grounds on which solar resource development was made a national mission, evaluating other non-conventional sources both on objective and subjective grounds may be deemed necessary for planning and managing sustainable development of non-conventional energy resources.

From the point of view of profitability, off-grid application, social advantages and, moreover, its comparison to large hydro power, assessing small hydro for meeting the criteria for a national mission won’t be unreasonable. Especially, in the light of the recent controversies over large hydro dams for causing irreversible environmental and social impacts, an alternative solution such as small hydro has gained prominence. Deliberating small hydro’s eligibility for acquiring government’s attention, funds and policies has the potential to unleash the entire discourse of renewable energy policies, design, implementation and development, with its commonalities to other renewables, other than solar which already is a national mission.

• Energy
• India
• ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
• energy efficiency

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