Meghalaya is one of India’s eight states making up the country's rich bio- and ethnically-diverse northeastern region.  Since 2013 HPNET members have worked to advance community-scale hydro in Meghalaya for last-mile energy access:

• In 2013, International Rivers and the Nagaland Empowerment of People thru EnergyDevelopment (NEPeD) hosted a micro hydro exchange event focusing on NE India, which connected HPNET to the Meghalaya Basin Development Agency (MBDA).
  
• In 2015, HPNET enabled India practitioners to attend HPNET’s Members Gathering held in Indonesia at the Hydropower Competence Center (HYCOM), connecting them to Pt entec Indonesia.
  
• In 2016, MBDA and HPNET held a regional exchange in Meghalaya, with VillageRES and PT entec Indonesia as co-facilitators.
  
• In mid-2019, International Rivers and partners, including HPNET, hosted a tri-country dialogue in Meghalaya, with CSOs and local practitioners from Nepal, Myanmar, and India.
  
• In late 2019, HPNET supported a reconnaissance field visit to understand field-based challenges to pico hydro scale up in NE India.
  
• In 2021, HPNET and International Rivers held a three-part virtual exchange focusing on  Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna, and Salween (GBMS) Rivers, providing regional inspiration from across S/SE Asia and customized capacity building.  
  
• The 2021 event included a special keynote by Mr. Augustus Suting, Special Officer at MBDA.
  

In between each of these milestones have been strategy dialogue among members. As such, when MBDA released a tender to accelerate pico hydro for rural electrification, HPNET members already had working relationships and a keen understanding of challenges and key solutions to leverage the opportunity.
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Below Mr. Ramasubramanian Vaidhyanathan (“Rams”), who has long been committed to the sub-region, provides a brief and exciting update on the most recent technical developments brought forth by a partnership between HPNET members VillageRES and Pt entec Indonesia.

To date an estimated 1000 villages remain unelectrified in the northeastern state of Meghalaya in India, out of approximately 6000 villages.  In 2022, MBDA identified about 200+ micro hydro sites for implementation located throughout the state in communities of the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo ethnic tribes.  The identified potential for most of the sites was 3 kW.  A few had a much higher potential but for this tender, projects were limited to 5 kW.

VillageRES (Village Renewable Energy Systems India Private limited) participated in the tender in partnership with EMSYS Electronics Private limited, a solar energy company based in Bangalore. The consortium was awarded 45 sites located throughout Meghalaya.   
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VillageRES entered into a manufacturing license agreement with PT entec Indonesia to manufacture their new cross flow turbine design with 150mm diameter runners. The turbine is called CFT 150/21.

The fabrication began in July 2022.  Pt entec Director, Mr. Gerhard Fischer, and the team helped us a lot with fabricating the first few pieces – updating drawings, dimensions, a few design corrections, etc. We fabricated the units in the south Indian industrial hub of Coimbatore, in the state of Tamil Nadu. 
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We are very pleased with the results: the turbines have come out very well made and were cost effective to fabricate. We also tested a few of the turbines at a site in Meghalaya and the performance was fantastic. We will be assessing the performance of this model more thoroughly once all the units are installed.

During the installation process, we found that many of the sites were situated right next to a waterfall and the penstock was installed at nearly a 90 degree angle without any proper support. While it was logical and easier to select sites that had an obvious sufficient head, other aspects, such as the design of the intake structure, penstock route, and penstock support appeared to have been completely overlooked. We realised that the on-site assessment methodology that we utilize in training has to be much more detailed and maybe periodically conducted to continue to build the capacity of the sector’s local personnel. Unless this is carried out, the project sites are prone to failure within a year or two of the installation.

Socio-Environmental Governance

There are many dimensions to the Hydroger Project.  Not only does it help to address basic electricity needs of people living in the villages, but it also has impacts on the environment, social and economic sectors.  Most of the NEPeD’s Hydroger installations are owned and managed by the communities.  Communities with Hydroger systems undergo capacity building and conservation of environmental ideas is deeply ingrained as part of this training. Each project site is also capacitated and facilitated to evolve their own revenue model.

Hydroger being a clean and alternative source of renewable energy has made an impact through energy delivery.  NEPeD while introducing and promoting this technology, has also encouraged the villagers to maintain the upland catchment areas to ensure a sustainable supply of water. ​
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Environment, conflict and resistance
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The region’s fertile land has also supported poppy plantations – the plant from which opium derives – fueling long-standing conflicts. Poppy plantations existed in the region until the late 1960s to early 1970s, at which point a UNDP initiative substituted the plantations with tea-leaf growing. Major townships of have since eradicated poppy growing, however it persists in other areas within Shan State. Some armed ethnic groups still exist in these areas and conflicts between the military and community groups persist in this ‘triangle’ linking eastern, southern and northern Shan.

That said, the ethnic people of the region strive to maintain peace in the region. Residents have heard that the military has plans to establish a base camp in a watershed area in the region, but the local  communities don’t accept military entering the area.

Other challenges also persist in the region, stemming from natural resources. For instance, the area has attracted mining and widespread logging, with devastating consequences for local communities and ecosystems. Mining has negatively impacted watershed ecosystems, while deforestation has resulted in frequent landslides and increasing water scarcity in summer months. However, local communities continue to resist natural resource exploitation on their lands. For instance, steadfast local resistance prevented a mining company from establishing itself in a village with an important watershed, which provides drinking water to 20 nearby villages. Across the region, the people continue to work to build back what has been lost, applying indigenous knowledge, innovation and determination to restore and conserve local ecosystems.

The community has seen the direct impact of deforestation on the river, with water scarcity noticeably worsening from one summer to the next. There is a critical need to restore the watershed ecosystem, to preserve the water source – not only for drinking water, food security, and irrigation, but also to safeguard the community’s electricity supply. With a keen understanding of the linkages between the forest watershed, water and energy, the community was mobilized to leverage the interconnected benefits of pico hydropower and ecosystem restoration.

​In the video linked above (People Power in Myanmar), elders observe how deforestation was gradually drying up the river; the community therefore plants trees and protects the watershed ecosystem, in order to ensure consistent and sufficient water levels and flow rates, for reliable energy access. ​