Have you wondered what hydro mini-grids are, and how they differ from other renewables?  
Have you come across a stream and asked how much electricity it could produce?  
Do you know the range of ways mini-grid communities can co-create social enterprises?   
Are you familiar with community hydro and would like a refresher on the fundamentals?   

If so, consider taking advantage of an upcoming virtual training opportunity on the fundamentals of community-scale (<1 MW) hydro implementation! ​

What is the SEEED Accelerator?

Building on 40-years of experiential hindsight on hydro mini-grid sustainability and impact, HPNET developed an initiative called Social Enterprise for Energy, Ecological and Economic Development (SEEED). Earlier this year, we launched the SEEED Accelerator to support practitioners and communities to customize proven sustainability mechanisms to local contexts, enabling climate resilience and socio-economic co-benefits through community-scale hydro. 

The first cohort of the SEEED Accelerator kicked off in August through a partnership with International Rivers.  We are excited to continue advancing the SEEED Accelerator in 2022 with support from Skat Foundation, beginning with the Fundamentals of Community Hydro training. 

What topics will the training cover?

​The Fundamentals of Community-Scale Hydro Mini-Grids training will provide participants with a solid introduction, which can also be useful as a refresher course, on the foundational elements of sustainable community-scale hydropower implementation.  While technical in focus, the training emphasizes climate resilience and other socio-environmental co-benefits.  An engineering or science background can be beneficial but not required.  The modules are as follows:

• Orientation to Hydro Mini-Grids
• Social Enterprise Models for Mini-Grids
• Demand Assessment
• Water Resource Assessment
• Terrain Assessment
• Power Output Design

What time commitment is required?

The training is flexible in design to accommodate your busy schedule.  Participants are encouraged to attend a live kick-off session on February 7, as well as weekly live sessions for Q&A and discussion for each module of the 6-week program.  In between the live sessions participants will be expected to do self-paced learning using the SEEED learning management system. Although optional, the live synchronous sessions will provide a valuable opportunity to connect with experts and peers. They will be planned for morning Sub-Saharan Africa and afternoon/evening Asia Pacific time zones.
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The time commitment for each of the 6 training modules is estimated as follows:

• Kickoff session: 1 hour (Optional)
• Live Q&A and peer-to-peer dialogue: 1 to 2 hours./week (Optional)  
• Self-work: 1 to 2 hours/week (Required)

Registration

Registration is now open! CLICK HERE TO REGISTER no later than February 1, 2021.  All interested individuals are welcome to apply to join the training.  

Other opportunities to look out for

Stay tuned for additional training opportunities coming up in 2022!  We will soon announce registration for two subsequent trainings, taking place in March:

Climate Resilient Solutions to Hydro Mini-Grids: March 21 - 25
We are excited to conduct a 4-day training on leveraging watershed management and Indigenous governance values and ecological knowledge to enable climate resilience of community hydro systems. 

Agroecological Benefits of Hydro Mini-grids: March 28 - 31
How can community hydro electricity and watersheds support sustainable food production?  Learn how and exchange ideas in this 5-day training on agroecological benefits of hydro mini-grids.

​Sign up for our newsletter to stay in the know and feel free to direct any questions to  secretariat@hpnet.org.

​Public, non-government, and private sector actors each play important roles in the small-scale hydropower landscape.  We are often inspired by the tenacity of locally-rooted, private entrepreneurs who are unperturbed by the challenges that come with establishing and running a financially viable business that also serves rural communities.  In this guest blog post, we hear from Mr. Komarudin, an entrepreneur who wears many hats as a manufacturer, developer, technical consultant, and micro hydro champion in Bandung, Indonesia.  He introduces us to his business, Protel Multi Energy (PME), which has been supporting rural energy access for over a decade. 

Protel Multi Energy focuses on the manufacturing of affordable Digital Electronic Load Controllers (ELCs), as well as micro hydro and pico hydro turbines (crossflow and Pelton) for rural electrification all over the world. Besides product manufacturing we also assist villagers and project owners in planning and designing micro hydro schemes. Sometimes we offer technical supervision on construction and installation. We are also able to do turnkey projects under certain circumstances.

Nowadays, especially in Indonesia, we are developing many micro hydro projects through Dana Desa (village funds). We often provide support for each stage, starting from site survey, to planning and design, project supervision, supply of equipment and post-installation management. Due to their lack of knowledge and experience, we assist villagers to develop their project as their own responsibility, under our supervision to make sure it runs well with a sustainable approach and reliable equipment.

To learn more about PME and access many useful tutorial videos, visit our YouTube channel!

We are delighted to present the fourth edition of our video podcast series, StreamSide Chats!  The podcast features deep-dive conversations with grassroots innovators and international experts of small-scale hydropower, offering insights from the ground, framed within multi-thematic analysis. 

​In this edition, we take a closer look at social and environmental aspects of community hydro, discussing small-scale hydropower from the perspective of Indigenous communities.  Through the case of a cluster of 12 micro hydro projects in Kalinga Province, Philippines, we explore important connections between community-scale hydro, Indigenous rights and livelihoods, and environmental stewardship. 

We had the privilege to speak with Ms. Jade Angngalao, Coordinator of the Renewable Energy Program at SIBAT.  Jade has worked with micro hydro communities for eleven years, focusing on various technical, social, and environmental aspects.  We learn from Jade how micro hydro is supporting socio-environmental resilience in Kalinga, bolstered by long-standing, robust self-governance structures and traditional ecological knowledge.  Don’t miss this chat, featuring a “streamside” tour of the Balbalasang micro hydro system and community! 

PART A: ​

In Part A, Jade reflects on her experience growing up with micro hydro and shares about the ways in which her social and cultural context influenced her view of ‘development’.  We learn how projects are developed and managed by Indigenous communities in Kalinga province, and discuss how local governance structures and traditional environmental protocols support sustainable energy access, climate resilience, and community development.  Jade shares about key challenges and future priorities, highlighting the opportunity for various stakeholders to support and uplift Indigenous-led, nature-based solutions like the community hydro initiatives in Kalinga.

​​Highlights:

03:44 - Cultural and environmental values
05:41 - Natural resource management
08:48 - First exposure to community hydro
12:04 - A rewarding role
13:40 - Productive end use 
15:48 - Rights and self-governance through community hydro
17:33 - 'Lapat' environmental protocols
21:00 - Governance structure
21:45 - Climate change and watershed restoration
26:00 - Challenges
28:50 - Load management
34:20 - From villages to towns
35:38 - Micro hydro versus the grid
38:05 - Need for government support 
40:00 - Nature-based solutions and climate finance

​In Part B, join us for a tour with Ms. Jade Angngalao, Coordinator of the Renewable Energy Program at SIBAT, Eng. Ver Ian Victorio, Head of Micro Hydro Power Turbine Testing Center, Univ. of Rizwal System, and Eng. Roy Andrada, the Project Manager of the URS-MHP Program.  First, Jade shares an overview of the Balbalasang micro hydro project, including its technical components, evolution, and local impacts.  Next, the team shows us around the project, chatting with key community members along the way.  From a computer lab at the local high school, to hostels and a carpentry workshop, the tour offers a glimpse into the various community assets enabled by the micro hydro system.

Highlights:

02:11 - Project location and governing body
02:53 - Technical layout, components, and evolution
04:30 - Project funding
05:03 - Community contribution of labor and land
05:21 - Productive end use and impact on local economy
06:43 - Social services end uses
07:58 - Household end uses
08:23 - Load Management
09:15 - Opportunity to upgrade the system
10:15 - Community-initiated fund for upgrade
11:09 - System running for two decades
11:46 - "StreamSide" tour of the project!

In case you missed it

Check out earlier editions of StreamSide Chats on our YouTube channel.  
​

• In Edition 1 we spoke with decentralized renewable energy specialist, Divyam Nagpal, and Director of Clean Energy at Winrock International, Bikash Pandey.  We discussed the role of micro hydro in contributing to long term rural economic recovery and resilience in the pandemic era.  

• In Edition 2 Bikash Pandey spoke with Ashoka Fellow and micro / mini hydro developer Bir Bahadur Ghale from Nepal, where over 3000 small-scale hydro projects have been developed, supporting local job creation and economic resilience, even in the aftermath of the devastating 2015 earthquake.

• In Edition 3 we focused on Pakistan’s unique small-scale hydro sector, which has been scaled up over several decades.  We spoke with Sherzad Ali Khan, the Coordinator of the Aga Khan Development Network (or AKDN) for Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral regions.  We discussed gender-aware planning, productive end use, successful management practices, grid interconnection, climate finance and more. 

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to stay updated on future releases!

Was there a particular person or situation that inspired you to focus on renewable energy and community hydro?

I became part of a movement, doing advocacy work in objection to big dams.  The World Bank was funding huge dams in the Northern part of the Philippines.  Well, the objection was led by communities.  They fought over several years and the people won, and the World Bank withdrew from the area.  It wasn’t only the dams, but issues related to logging as well.  When Ferdinand Marcos was president, under martial law, he allowed his cronies to exploit the resources up in the mountains, the watersheds.  And again, the Indigenous people in that area resisted and they won – the big corporation withdrew from the area.  So, I witnessed this and that, of course, was immense and very important to me.  I realized that only the people can make change.  Actually, it was a tribal community (the Butbut tribe) who articulated and requested  that a small-scale hydro be built in their community, as the alternative to the big dam. They realized the importance of hydropower, but at a scale that would not hurt them, that would not displace communities.  So they provided us the insight on what to do and that was the birth of the community-based micro hydro.  Reflecting now, I think that was, in fact, a key element of our framework for renewable energy development. 

So, basically, it was in that region where the micro hydro work started.  We provided the technical support and the community contributed as well, and that became our framework going forward.  And we leveraged this to reach out to funding agencies such as the UN Development Programme Small Grants Program and the Department of Energy, who then supported a number of our projects.  Then that experience in that area inspired other tribal, Indigenous communities in the North to build similar systems, which in turn set an example for other Indigenous provinces to do the same.

I built a team of effective people.  Not all were engineers; we especially paid attention to involving people from the ground.  In time they all learned the theories behind the civil works.  And, most importantly, we built all of the micro hydro components locally.  We were in collaboration with a university in the North, who had good people who understood community-based work.  There was one very good engineer, who has since passed away, who  really provided strong, technological knowledge to our team, who we are very thankful for.  

That was a period in the Philippines when policies were being drawn up to embark on renewable energy.  We advocated for a community-based approach, but the government was influenced by the big energy companies coming in.  So we continued our work even without policy to support us and, in the Cordillera Region, we built 27 micro hydro systems in collaboration with the communities and with local government units who recognized the role of the communities.  The people, women, men and even children, came to do the physical construction work.  The micro hydro organizations were built coming from the collective work in construction,  and each organization formulated and enforced the policies to maintain and sustain the plant over these many years.  The community organization provided the guidance to manage and sustain the micro hydro.  Certainly, women have important roles to play in managing the micro hydro organizations, such as enforcing policies, and collectively sustaining the waterways and hillsides along these. 
​
Following a period of rehabilitation after some 10 years or more, all the projects there are further improved and made to function up to the present, delivering the required energy per household and per community, providing 24-hour lighting, use of household appliances and powering livelihoods.  

​So we started with resisting the big dam and won.  And then the anti-logging struggle also played an important role in making the people understand the importance of defending their forests.  In that province, where most of the micro hydro projects were implemented, the communities experienced a learning process around watershed protection.  This strengthened the lappat system, the traditional system of forest protection in the indigenous communities.  With that understanding of the need to protect the water source to enable electricity generation, the communities have been able to sustain their systems for more than 20 years now. 

What kind of changes have you seen in the sector since you started out?

There are more and more people in the science and technology sector, including students and professionals, who are interested to volunteer and come with us to the field and take part. ​

​In addition, the government’s energy programs are very strong and they look down at what we’re doing; but in recent years we’ve been able to show the economic impact of our approach.  In 2018, we convened a conference addressing the impact of about 20 years of work.  Looking back, earlier on a number of us were working on advocacy in our organization but not very systematically. Of course, we wrote papers and convened big, national conferences, especially at the start when we were trying to promote our work nationally; but now there is evidence we can leverage, standing side by side, something we can show the big systems of the government. 

A few years back you established a new organization called RESILIENCE. Can you tell us about RESILIENCE and what led you to initiate it?

So, this was after my work in SIBAT.  I thought of broadening the focus to embrace climate change because that is a very big threat to societies and it will have a very adverse impact on resources, and even on the micro hydro systems that we were advocating for.  SIBAT already focused on sustainable agriculture, so we had that framework for addressing how different issues are connected, but climate is something that had to be addressed.  So I organized RESILIENCE with a few people, but it will take us some more years to develop.  With the pandemic it really had slowed down due to movement restrictions; but once the situation improves we will get back to it.  And it will involve connecting with organizations that focus on climate change and us contributing our strength in sustainable agriculture, in watershed management, as well as renewable energy.  It has yet to take off strongly, but the concept is there.
​

Why is climate resilience important in micro hydro communities?

Well, it's for the protection of the systems themselves against landslides, the lowering of the water level – all those aspects that affect the resources in the communities.  Now communities are seeing an increase in specific impacts of climate change, such as typhoons and landslides.  When these things happen we have to rehabilitate the systems, strengthen the civil works, and strengthen the role of the communities in conserving the forests and maintaining the water channels.  In micro hydro communities, climate resilience encompasses a lot – the lives of the people and the protection of their innovations, successes and achievements.
​

We’ve heard from other colleagues in the Philippines how Indigenous communities have long traditions of environmental stewardship.  How does that come into play?

We have seen many communities that lead in this – they have formulated community policies that govern watershed management, including the cutting of trees and protection of resources in the watershed area.  But there are communities that still have to formulate theirs. So the traditional system that’s at the forefront of sustainable watershed protection is called lapat, which is a very important policy that people hold sacred and that they abide by. That is a great tradition being sustained up until now, but not all communities have done that.  And only Indigenous communities have that; others should learn from them.

What challenges have you faced as a woman practitioner? How did you overcome these obstacles? 
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​Of course, men dominate this field, but I am intrinsically strong and I have to keep showing that strength in order for other women to be strong.  So, I have built small women’s groups in the city and while in the rural areas.  And I have tried to show by example that you can speak, that you can act, that you can contribute to the discussion and take the lead where you are needed to take lead. I think mobilizing women is my strength.  When I go to a rural community, the first people I engage are the older women.  

You have to keep yourself strong and not be intimidated, by organizing more women to add to their number in the field.  And I've seen my former students really take strides in leadership in community work.  So reflecting back, I think it’s about leading by example.  I am also a member of the national women's organization here; I was part of building it during my younger days.  So the importance of the role of women is very strong in me.  

What do women leaders have to offer in energy access efforts? 

Access to energy has an impact within households on women and children.  Women are really impacted by everything that energy is used for inside the home, because of the care work that they do.  So, I have seen rural women speaking very strongly for the sustaining of the micro hydro, and even taking a strong role in the physical maintenance of the hillsides, keeping the water channels clean.  They're quite strong in that because it has an impact on their life.  Electricity reduces their work in the household, it allows the children to study longer hours, and they can go to the fields with less risk because there is light outside the homes.  

Traditionally, women are often not present at community meetings and instead stay home to care for the kinds.  But when it comes to rural electrification, we’ve seen that women are quite strong in community meetings.  The mothers come even together with the children and that provides insight into the importance of energy access to women, and the important role of women within these innovations.
​

What solutions could we employ to address gender challenges in the sector?

Well, the livelihood opportunities that energy access enables should be more accessible to women.  And during my time in SIBAT we worked on innovating on some machines so that women can handle them easier, with less physical strength required.  And when it comes to maintenance of the powerhouse, women can do that.  So first help develop a fair opportunity for them to be part of what is supposedly a men’s domain, especially in livelihood matters.  You can develop a specific approach to address that; maybe a women’s committee can be formed among other committees in the community, in order to address women’s particular needs.  It’s important to look at technical matters, as well as the broader impacts.  Always consider how women are affected and strengthen these aspects. 

Within SIBAT, I have advocated for technical training for women and, although we have more men, we do have women engineers.  But renewable energy development is not just technology and from the start of designing a program you have to look at the projected impact.  So, you should not leave out the participation of women, especially in designing their livelihood paths.  For example, sugar cane pressing, which is traditional in the mountain areas – with electricity they can develop the sugar industry, beyond just pressing.

Food is important to rural women, it is important to households.  So agriculture can also be strengthened by micro hydro, for instance by enabling electric machines and equipment.  Such activities have always concerned women in particular because of their role in sustaining the household.   

​What brings you hope for the future?

Again, that there will always be change.  And I know if people can really work together then they can encourage the authorities to involve them.  Right now during the pandemic, when the roles of local people are being addressed, there should be room made for community-based initiatives to build the change. I know that in my more than 30 years in this, when I began as a student activist in a small corridor of the university doing science, there had been great changes already.  But not very structurally.  But you could see the people’s minds do change. 

And our efforts in micro hydropower development should – at least up to the municipality level – make them realize that community-based efforts should be a big, big part of the Philippines national program for development.  In the mountains of Abra in Kalinga, there are 30 micro hydropower systems, not resulting from the initiative of the government, but from the initiative of the people. And there are those coming to a realization that this is something that they should study and perhaps multiply.  My hopes for that are high.​

Is there anything we have missed about your journey that you would like to share with our readers?

I look forward to seeing what big collective efforts will come about through the work of RESILIENCE, looking at all aspects, from water, to energy, economics, agriculture.  That’s something that I hope to be a part of.  

Earlier this quarter, we learned of the successful testing and commissioning of the 200kW Bom Kohla Mini Hydropower project in Lukla, Nepal, made possible by Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC), ADB and the Lukla community.  We offer our congratulations to HPNET members at AEPC who contributed to this project, enabling reliable, affordable, clean energy.

For a glimpse of the project – situated in the foothills of Mount Everest – and the team that brought it to fruition, check out this post from HPNET Member, Jiwan Kumar Mallik.  Jiwan currently holds the position of Solar Power Expert under the AEPC’s Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood (RERL) program.
 
Stay tuned for further updates on the implementation of the Bom Khola Mini Hydro project, coming soon!

Electronic load controllers (ELCs) are a critical component of micro hydropower systems, which keep turbines, generators, and the energy they produce within safe operating ranges, as loads are switched on and off.  ELCs can prevent damage to appliances and micro hydro components and even mitigate fire and electrical hazards.  Despite their important role, ELCs are generally the least understood component of micro hydro systems.  Equipment selection can be particularly challenging if practitioners are unfamiliar with the different types of ELCs and their relative merits. 

To help demystify ELCs and ease the equipment selection process, our Controllers and Load Management Work Stream has developed an easy-to-follow factsheet.  This “Basics of Electronic Load Controllers (ELCs)" tool provides a useful background on electronic, automatic and manual flow control, with pointers on their relative cost and suitability in different contexts.  Specific types of ELC designs are further illuminated, as well as ballast/dump load types and control methods, commissioning checks, and useful questions to ask of suppliers.   

Check out the “Basics of Electronic Load Controllers (ELCs)" at this link.

We extend our thanks to Work Stream contributors Ajith Kumara, Bob Matthews, Dan Frydman, Jiwan Kumar Mallik and Rams Vaidhyanathan.

For more useful tools, check out our Micro Hydro Toolkit for Practitioners, which includes a DIY ELC Simulation Tool designed to help train local operators!

We’re excited to present the latest edition of StreamSide Chats -- our video podcast series featuring conversations with grassroots innovators and international experts of small-scale hydropower.  The podcast facilitates deep-dive conversations with practitioners, bringing to light firsthand insights from the field, framed within multi-thematic analysis.

​In Edition 3, we focus on Pakistan’s unique small-scale hydro sector, which has been scaled up over several decades.  To date, over a thousand systems have been developed in Pakistan by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) and its regional partners, in partnership with rural communities.

​We had the privilege to speak with Sherzad Ali Khan, the Coordinator of the Aga Khan Development Network (or AKDN) for the mountainous regions of Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral in northern Pakistan.  Prior to his current role, Sherzad worked for AKRSP, at which time he further innovated the community ownership models for micro and mini hydro.  AKRSP’s Community Utility Company model continues to generate positive outcomes, and serves as a model for women-centric approaches to governance and productive end use.

Referencing insightful and inspiring examples, Sherzad provides insight into AKRSP’s Community-Utility Company model and how it facilitates inclusive, sustainable energy access and community development.  We discuss gender-aware planning, productive end use, successful management practices, grid interconnection, climate finance and more.

​In case you missed it

Check out earlier editions of StreamSide Chats on our YouTube channel.  
​

• In Edition 1 we spoke with decentralized renewable energy specialist, Divyam Nagpal, and Director of Clean Energy at Winrock International, Bikash Pandey.  We discussed the role of micro hydro in contributing to long term rural economic recovery and resilience in the pandemic era.  

• In Edition 2 Bikash Pandey spoke with Ashoka Fellow and micro / mini hydro developer Bir Bahadur Ghale from Nepal, where over 3000 small-scale hydro projects have been developed, supporting local job creation and economic resilience, even in the aftermath of the devastating 2015 earthquake.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to stay updated on future releases!

As part of the SEEED Accelerator, HPNET launched the SEEED cohort for the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Meghna, and Salween River Basins, in partnership with International Rivers, to advance community-scale hydropower in the region. 

​With support from TROSA and funding from the Government of Sweden and WISIONS, the SEEED cohort engaged in capacity building, multi-actor dialogue and peer-to-peer exchange, including through a two-day virtual exchange event. 

​You can find video recordings, session summaries, presentation slides, and other event resources at this link!

While small-scale hydropower or hydro mini-grids is a viable solution energy access, its innate characteristics generate co-benefits, including increased local socio-economic resilience and increased climate resilience of the water-energy-livelihoods nexus. 

​International donor support for rural development (including electrification) in the global South is often implemented in close partnership with national governments.  However, increasingly national governments are the cause of dire conflict situations, involving human rights abuses, mass casualties, and socio-economic fallout from constant violence and lack of safety of civilians.  

IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
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International development partners can better integrate political economy analyses into the design of their programs.  For example, in the case of Myanmar prior to the 2021 coup the country had faced government takeover by the national military thrice since its national independence from the British in 1948.  While the closely monitored 2015 elections were democratic, the NLD government’s victory was a pseudo-democracy since the advantages granted by the country’s constitution to the Myanmar military dictatorship had not changed with the election.

​In spite of the obvious history of national military rule and its restraint on the civilian government, many international multilateral financiers and bi-lateral donors that entered the country after 2013 chose the fledgling national government as their primary client.  The repercussions of this decision are the missed opportunities to strategically use development initiatives as a tool to empower civilians and weaken the junta. Had the country’s political economy been accounted for by international development partners, a looming coup would have been anticipated, and the primary recipients of international support would have been local and non-government actors.  However, doing so would have required international partners to revamp their approaches to build trust with local practitioners.

The situation is similar in Cameroon and Ethiopia, where the conflicts are also rooted within national governments.   When governments begin to commit human rights violations, their international development partners can only simply cut ties with the government, having no institutional leverage to negotiate on behalf of ethnic and marginalized civilians.  However, hindsight analyses can help donors integrate the realities of local and national political economy into future scoping missions and program designs.

RESILIENCE OF LOCAL AND NON-GOVERNMENT STAKEHOLDERS

​As the need for rural development has become greater with the pandemic and the humanitarian situations, international donors now seek non-government partners to deploy aid and support in countries of conflict.  However, such a noble approach comes too late -- local non-government actors are forced to focus on maintaining basic safety (ironically from violence caused by the same national governments that were supported by international donors) and economic stability.  

Yet local civil society organizations (CSOs) and local private enterprises continue to be resilient in the face of the conflict.  In Myanmar local CSOs have pooled together to provide aid to ethnic regions destroyed by the national military, micro hydro communities continue to build climate and economic resilience in a devastated economy, and local private sector actors have forged ahead with their promises to electrify communities. In Cameroon and Ethiopia government censorship has prevented access to understanding the plight of impacted rural communities, but it is clear that activists living in the conflict regions are frontline changemakers.

While it will be difficult for international aid to support the frontline during conflict, it is still valuable to conduct a hindsight analysis on what alternatives to government partnerships could have been more strategic from a political economy perspective.  From the energy access and local practitioner aspects of rural development, we offer the following hindsight.

MITIGATING INTERNAL BIASES
​
The staff and consultants of international development organizations come with their own biases, based on their professional journeys.  The biases prevent them from fully understanding the political economy aspects of energy access.  For example, they may be more open to a practitioner that is an English-versed extrovert with less experience and not from the local region, than an English-challenged introvert who has an extensive track record and is based locally.  They may chastise the crude appearance of locally developed technology without understanding the constraints it was built under nor the value of the local social capital that resulted.  The presence of such biases during the scoping of a mission and during every engagement between international and local, non-government stakeholders impedes trust-building.  The biases can be countered by acknowledging them and taking support from bridge-building facilitators who can strategize around the strengths, weaknesses, and incentives of the differing international donor, government, and non-government contexts.

TWO-WAY, RESULTS BASED CAPACITY BUILDING 

Local capacity building is a vital aspect of any development initiative to sustain itself post-implementation.  However, often the approach used by international development partners are not results-based, outcome-oriented, nor linked to implementation.  At times the specific need for knowledge building is not addressed because the international development partner has not taken initiative, effort, and/or lacks skill to understand the local context, and relies only on what its consultants can offer.  Trainers fly in for some days without having ample time to build understanding prior to the training event and follow up after.  Participant selection does not prioritize local practitioners; and when it does the targeted actors do not want to attend due to lack of trust and assurance of the training meeting their needs.  

Such pitfalls can be addressed with two-way learning between international and local stakeholders, where capacity building includes international actors learning from local practitioners.  In this way local knowledge is valued as much as international knowhow, i.e. local trainers are paid as much as international trainers.  Valuing local expertise is a robust and efficient way to build trust with local stakeholders, which also helps to develop customized, impact-based interventions. Scaled micro hydro contexts embraced two-way learning.  For example, Swiss trainers in Nepal in the early 1990s designed technical capacity building after understanding existing manufacturing skills and facilities, EnDev Indonesia’s management spent weeks in the field to understand the existing situation before iterating their program, and HPNET’s work in Myanmar started with a scoping mission led by local organizations involving foreign partners, and created space for two-way learning with international development organizations.

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND?
​
As international development partners exit conflict stricken countries, the media’s attention fades, and funding priorities shift, the dire situations on the ground continue to worsen.  The progress of taxpayer-funded, international development interventions is unraveled.  Some donors stay on but must abide by the oppressive regimes’ rules, including not spotlighting the humanitarian crises and not holding the regime responsible.  While addressing post-conflict downstream impact (e.g. refugee crises) is critical, more must be done to integrate political economy analyses and the strengthening of local, non-government entities in development and aid interventions. 

In spite of a long-awaited and victorious democratic election in 2015 in Myanmar, the National League for Democracy (NLD) government fell to the country's third and most devastating military takeover on Feb. 1, 2021.  Since then, over 1200 civilians including women and children have been killed by the military, and over 7000 peaceful protestors have been indefinitely detained, in prisons infamous for torture.  Prior to the coup, the military government has for decades inflicted horrid violence in indigenous regions, including the genocide waged against the Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2017 that triggered 740,000 survivors to flee by foot to refugee camps in Bangladesh. 

Connecting with and supporting renewable energy practitioners in Myanmar amidst the dismal humanitarian situation, we are observing glimpses of resilience in the continued efforts of local mini-grid communities, developers, and civil society organizations (CSOs) -- as listed below.  [Names and locations have purposely been omitted for safety.]​

Considering that the post-coup context makes it difficult for international aid and development agencies to continue in Myanmar, it’s clear that robust rural development requires local actors at the forefront.

In the Asia Pacific and Africa political conflict this year has significantly impacted micro hydro regions.  We have been tracking situations in Myanmar, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Afghanistan, in order to understand the impact of conflict on rural development efforts and vice versa.

​Read more: Hindsight: Micro Hydro in Regions of Conflict

In Cameroon, located on the Gulf of Guinea in Central Africa, local pico and micro hydro practitioners had been making steady progress.  Unfortunately, the devastating conflict has brought the progress to a complete halt.  The region has become inaccessible without severe risk of safety.

Two violent conflicts are plaguing the country.  In addition to a reinvigorated Boko Haram insurgency, the ‘Anglophone Crisis’ has been ongoing since 2016, when peaceful protests were met with brutal government suppression that escalated into armed conflict.  Initially, Anglophone protestors demanded reforms related to the use of French in schools and courtrooms in English-speaking regions.  By September of 2017, freedom fighters were demanding full independence.  Since the 2018 Presidential election, the 2020 Parliamentary election, and through 2021, ethno-political tensions have been further heightened and amplified on social media. 

Because the situation has received sparse media attention, we would like to highlight key points voiced by the diaspora.

OPEN SPACE FACILITATION

​The half-day online event will utilize Open Space Technology (OST) facilitation.  OST as defined by leading facilitator Chris Corrigan is:

• A simple, powerful way to catalyze effective working conversations and truly inviting organizations — to thrive in times of swirling change.
• A methodological tool that enables self-organizing groups of all sizes to deal with hugely complex issues in a very short period of time.
• A powerful group process that supports positive transformation in organizations, increases productivity, inspires creative solutions, improves communication and enhances collaboration.
• The most effective process for organizations and communities to identify critical issues, voice to their passions and concerns, learn from each other, and, when appropriate, take collective responsibility for finding solutions.  

Four Principles and One Law
​
Open Space operates under four principles and one law.  The four principles are:

1.  Whoever comes are the right people.
2.  Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
3.  When it starts is the right time.
4.  When it's over it's over.

The Law is known as the Law of Two Feet:  "If you find yourself in a situation where you are not contributing or learning, move somewhere where you can."  ​The four principles and the law work to create a powerful event motivated by the passion and bounded by the responsibility of the participants. 

Day 2 is designed to utilize OST facilitation to catalyze dialogue on the theme of solutions for advancing community-scale hydropower for the climate and economic resilience in the GBMS basins.

Opening Session
12:30 - 1 PM IST, Welcome & Overview

The half-day event will commence with opening remarks, introductions, and event overview.​

• Welcome and Participant Intros, Nalori Chakma, International Rivers
• Overview of Community Hydro in GBMS Regions, "How We Got Here", and OST Orientation, Dipti Vaghela, Hydro Empowerment Network

Creating Open Space
1 - 1:30 PM IST, Open Space Technology (OST) Setup

The event will move into establishing the key components of OST.

• Collaborative Agenda Setting
• Short break
• ​Marketplace Wall

Multi-Actor Dialogue - Round 1
1:30 - 2:45 PM IST, Open Space Round 1 

Using the OST principles, the 1st round of participant-led interactive dialogue will take place.

• Convene Round 1
• ​Report Back 

Join us for a virtual exchange event to advance small-scale hydropower (< 1MW) for climate and economic resilience! ​

DAY 1:  PRACTITIONER EXCHANGE
DATE:  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2021
TIME*:  12:30 - 5:00 PM INDIA STANDARD TIME (IST) / 7:00-11:30 AM (UTC)
REGISTER HERE
*You can use this time conversion table to convert from IST to your time.

HPNET is excited to host a virtual exchange event from 21-22 September, 2021, in partnership with International Rivers, supported by TROSA, funded by the Government of Sweden and WISIONS.  Read more about our partnership with International Rivers here.

Day 1 provides an opportunity to hear from locally-rooted practitioners who work directly with micro hydro communities across the Asia Pacific.  As shown in the agenda below, the half-day event is divided into two parts, each consisting of two parallel sessions.  Each session will include a 20-30 minute Q&A period, during which participants are encouraged to ask questions.  Our flexible platform will enable participants to move between parallel sessions, should they choose to do so.  If you haven't already registered, be sure to do so at the link above.

​The following agenda details the timing, topics, panelists and moderators for Day 1.

Closing Session, 4:30 - 5 PM IST
Summary and Ways Forward
​​
To conclude the day, event organizers will summarize the day's events and highlight points of interest.  Participants will be advised of relevant, upcoming events and activities to stay tuned for. 

​IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Event Summary & Recordings

Missed the event?  You can find video recordings, session summaries, presentation slides, and other event resources at this link!

The river basins of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna, and Salween (GBMS) Rivers are endowed with rich natural resources, exceptional biodiversity, and vibrant indigenous cultures.  Yet social and environmental well-being continue to be undermined by large hydro development, as decision makers seek economic prosperity and economic recovery, in the stark context of a global pandemic. 

However, community-scale hydropower offers an alternative path that provides modern energy services, while strengthening the local social, economic, and ecological resources of this unique region.  The region is fortunate to have experienced local practitioners who have been advancing pico hydropower as a nature-based, community-centric solution for clean and sustainable energy access.

​HPNET has engaged with local practitioners in the region since 2013, in partnership with International Rivers, Nagaland Empowerment of People thru Energy Development (NEPeD), and the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA), and the Meghalaya State Council for Science and Technology for different activities.   We have mapped stakeholders, visited sites, and held dialogues on opportunities, challenges, and regional best practices, based on a 4-step approach to knowledge exchange.   Since 2019 the approach has been refined into a knowledge-to-impact initiative called Social Enterprise for Energy, Ecological and Economic Development (SEEED).  SEEED is based on 40-years of experiential hindsight in the global South on what makes community hydro systems sustainable and deliver optimal results.  The SEEED Accelerator was launched this quarter, enabling practitioners to customize proven sustainability mechanisms to local contexts, unlocking their potential to generate climate resilient socio-economic co-benefits.

Cohort Capacity Building
​
The GBMS SEEED cohort kicked off earlier this month with a 3-day virtual capacity building event, offering technical capacity building for small-scale hydro practitioners working directly with communities in the GBMS regions (i.e. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal or Thailand).  The course was conducted by Mr. Ramasubramanian (a.k.a Rams) Vaidhyanathan, focusing on site assessment and the basics of system design for systems < 10 kW.  Days 1 and 3 were conducted online, and Day 2 included optional field assessment work.  The group of 20+ participants are continuing to solidify their understanding of key topics while also learning about each other’s work through group emails facilitated by Rams.  Remaining committed to field-based practitioners, the HPNET Secretariat will continue to facilitate learning exchange among the cohort beyond the HPNET - Intl Rivers partnership period.

Customized Individual Coaching
​
All participants who completed the 3-day group training have been invited to receive follow-up, customized capacity building.  This allows helping to resolve each participant’s specific technical issues in their ongoing initiatives and to improve their technical processes to prevent issues.   This type of support is important for both advanced practitioners (e.g. NE India practitioners scaling up their work to hundreds of implementations this year), as well as beginning level practitioners (e.g. civil society organizations in Myanmar who are conducting their very first feasibility studies).  It is also an opportunity for the HPNET Secretariat to continue refining its approach to the SEEED Accelerator, better responding to and strategizing context-specific needs for future cohorts.

​Peer-to-Peer Exchange Event

An exchange event will be held on 21-22 September, 2021.  Building upon exchanges conducted in 2016, 2018, and 2019,  this 2-day virtual event aims to provide opportunities for South-South, peer-to-peer exchange and multi-stakeholder dialogue.  Day 1 will focus on sharing from field-based practitioners from across the Asia Pacific, while Day 2 will focus on multi-stakeholder dialogue on country and state specific challenges and opportunities in the GBMS regions.  See here for details on how to participate!  

Decades of civil war have hindered energy infrastructure development in Afghanistan, particularly in rural regions, where 74% of the country’s population resides. Yet, more than 5000 hydro mini-grids were installed in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2015, vastly expanding rural energy access. The majority of these systems are community-owned and -managed, many are self-financed, and nearly all utilize local technology. (For a detailed overview of renewable energy potential and community-based projects in Afghanistan, see this presentation by HPNET member, Sultan Javid.) 

​Over time, micro hydro manufacturing capacity has developed in many regions of Afghanistan, thanks to the ingenuity of local entrepreneurs and the contributions of organizations like HPNET member Remote HydroLight (RHL). Through training and technical support, RHL supported communities seeking to manufacture, install and maintain turbines and electric load controllers (ELCs), from 2006 until 2013. RHL and the International Assistance Mission, which RHL’s founders were involved with prior, supported the installation of about 400 hydro mini-grids in total. 

​Reliable, locally manufactured technology is a foundational element of hydro mini-grid sustainability and community empowerment. For this reason, local technical capacity is prioritized in our SEEED initiative, which supports practitioners and communities to transition toward long-lived hydro mini-grids anchored in local social enterprise. By supporting technical capacity-building, practitioners like RHL can support local actors to achieve sustainable hydro mini-grids and lasting community empowerment. Indeed, although RHL discontinued activities in-country in 2013, many systems that were supported by RHL are still in operation after over a decade, thanks to RHL’s efforts to build the capacity and technical know-how of local workshops.

International donors are also stepping up to support the sustainability of small-scale hydropower in Afghanistan. This year, Skat Consulting Ltd. is collaborating with GIZ to assess 400-500 projects for rehabilitation. Assessment will focus on technical aspects, as well as productive end use, which is another critical element of mini-grid sustainability. Read on to hear more about the initiative from Skat consultant and HPNET BoA Member, Dr. Hedi Feibel.

The GIZ Energy Sector Improvement Program (ESIP) in Afghanistan, under its four objectives, supports: 

1. the improvement of the regulatory framework for renewable energies (RE) and energy efficiency (EE); 
2. vocational training and university education; 
3. the establishment of service agreements for private owners of RE systems and finally; 
4. rural electrification of micro and small enterprises (MSE) in the productive use of renewable energy. 

Under the fourth component, an “RE survey tool” has been developed to assess the current situation in the three provinces of Badakhshan, Takhar and Bamyan with regard to their RE supply and possible improvement, in particular for enterprises and their productive use of energy. The tool is an excel file which is filled with data and information collected by the local team of more than 30 experts of a joint venture between VOLTAF and SH Consultants. Before and during the survey, the local team is supported and guided by the mini hydro experts of Skat Consulting Ltd. and a solar expert of intec-gopa. The international consultants mainly act as external data evaluators, quality assurers and technical solution advisers on data collected from the national team during the survey.

​During the tough winter months, the team started the survey and provided valuable data, information and photos. 

The collected information will be condensed in various types of “fact sheets” (e.g. district fact sheets, MHP fact sheets, etc.) to finally assess, evaluate and select energy systems to be rehabilitated (MHP systems) or newly installed (solar PV systems), to increase income generation in MSEs that guarantee cost-covering operation of the RE systems in rural areas. The approximately 400-500 MHP fact sheets will summarise the technical and managerial status of the schemes to quickly assess the potential for improvement.

Guest blog post written by HPNET Board of Advisors member Hedi Feibel, PhD, of Skat Consulting Ltd., with introduction inputs from Owen Schumacher of Remote HydroLight.

Based on regional hindsight and best practices from local practitioners, we have identified several core elements that enable hydro mini-grid sustainability; these interlinking elements provide the basis for our initiative Social Enterprise for Energy, Ecological and Economic Development (SEEED).  Sustainable watersheds are the foundational element of SEEED because hydro mini-grids rely on, and can contribute to, the health of forest landscapes.

Healthy forested watersheds support consistent flow year-round, mitigate erosion and landslides, and contribute to climate resilience.  Small-scale hydropower can incentivize communities to tap into and revive traditional ecological knowledge, in order to protect and restore watersheds and enable reliable energy access.  (See our Earth Voices feature series for examples of indigenous communities that are harnessing the interconnected benefits of watershed restoration and small-scale hydro.)

To better understand best practices for integrating watershed restoration and community hydropower, we look to insights from Nicaragua.  In the video presentation provided below, we had the privilege to present the exemplary work of the Rural Development Workers Association Benjamin Linder (or ATDER-BL) and the Association for the Development of Electrical Service in Bocay (or APRODELBO).  ATDER-BL and APRODELBO have been advancing rural energy access in Nicaragua since 1987, while restoring many acres of watersheds in partnership with local communities.

   

​We hope that the presentation will inform and inspire watershed restoration efforts among practitioners, elsewhere.

Presentation developed by ATDER-BL, APRODELBO and HPNET 
Presented by HPNET Secretariat member Jorge Nieto Jiménez

For nearly three decades, Yamog Renewable Energy Development Group Inc. has been advancing clean energy solutions to improve socio-economic and environmental well-being in rural Mindanao, Philippines. Yamog’s holistic approach prioritizes local capacity building, watershed restoration and sustainable development—resulting in sustainable projects with high value-add that illustrate the wide-reaching potential of community-based, small-scale hydropower.

Keep up to date on Yamog’s impactful work by liking their Facebook page where they frequently post insightful and inspiring updates. A quick scroll reveals just how active the organization is — leading watershed resource mapping, facilitating workshops to build local technical capacity, supporting women-led enterprises, and so much more. Be sure to hit the ‘like’ button and show your support for Yamog’s dedicated efforts to advance sustainable, community-led development.

Our Hidden No More series features women micro hydro practitioners who have transformed gender barriers to generate energy access for marginalized communities.

But you really cannot ignore the environmental impact of oil and gas extraction. I got to witness firsthand how damaging drilling is to the environment. Even though I appreciated the opportunity to travel and work with a diverse group of people, I realized pretty quickly that oil and gas wasn’t for me.​

I then found myself in Somaliland in the Horn of Africa where I  was a volunteer teacher at a school. The school was putting up a 20kW wind turbine, the first one in the country. I supported the first phase of the project - putting in the foundation for the turbine- my first experience with renewable energy. ​

​I realized that I could still utilize my engineering background and work in international development. That was really how I came to learn about the energy access world. Wanting to get more experience with renewable energy systems, I spent a summer with my first micro-hydro project in Malaysia - supported by a then professor at the Masdar Institute (now my co-founder and colleague). When my time in Somaliland ended, I joined the Masdar Institute as a graduate researcher to continue working on community energy systems. 

What was your research focused on at Masdar Institute?

My work at the Institute was focused on understanding the links between community development and mini-grid systems, and how you could design engineering systems differently to incorporate community development objectives. I felt like I had spent enough time studying the engineering side of things, I wanted to get creative and merge all these learnings from other non-engineering fields into engineering systems. Using the tools that we know in engineering systems and architecture, and incorporating methodologies from social sciences and anthropology. The idea was simple and definitely not new, if you looked at a system and expanded the boundaries to include all the non-engineering aspects of it, you would get a much more comprehensive system. The challenge was translating those aspects into engineering requirements that don’t dismiss the people factor.

Tell us about why you established Energy Action Partners (ENACT). 
​
By the end of my time at Masdar, I was committed to the work that I was doing with community energy and wanted to take The Minigrid Game further and build it out. In 2014, with my graduate advisor and another colleague who has since left, we co-founded Energy Action Partners. In Energy Action Partners’ early days, we continued with the work we had been doing around community energy systems with The Minigrid Game, and short field-based courses for students and young professionals on energy access, community development, and social entrepreneurship. These early programs gave us the opportunity to partner with other organizations, while building up The Minigrid Game. Fast forward 6 years later, The Minigrid Game is now COMET - Community Energy Toolkit, and is very much our core program. COMET is a software tool that simulates a mini-grid system. It’s used in field-based mini-grid planning workshops to inform and engage communities through meaningful collaboration. Among other things, COMET helps communities and developers make better decisions around system sizing, tariff-setting, and demand-side management.

After receiving funding from Wuppertal Institute’s WISIONS, which enabled us to conduct our first Minigrid Game (now COMET) community deployments in 2017, we started seeing interest in COMET from other organizations. Last year, we received funding from Innovate UK’s Energy Catalyst, which gave us the support we needed to take the software tool to the next level and turn it into COMET, a robust community-driven demand exploration tool for mini-grids. With our team working from home this past year, we’ve had the time to develop new features and rethink our plan to grow COMET. 

What's ENACT's approach to community engagement? 
​
Our approach is based on our values as an organization, heavily inspired by the Human Capability Approach from Amartya Sen. To us, community development is 1) defined by the community and not by anybody else, and 2) a set of capabilities and opportunities that communities want for themselves. Development should always be defined by the communities and not by an external entity telling them what development should look like. Our values guide us to develop micro-grid systems that meet those desired opportunities. If a community, for example, says that their set of capabilities includes wanting to be more politically active and to access more education, then the micro-grid system should enable that. It should enable television, telecommunication services, internet and all that they need so they can further their intended capabilities. And everything else may become secondary - if a system doesn’t run reliably 24/7 but still fulfils the community’s objectives and goals then that to us is still a success. Essentially, we define the objective of a system slightly differently than how others may view things, where it’s about making sure that the electricity system runs the way it was designed. I mean that’s definitely a positive, but what’s more important is the community actually achieves what they wanted to in the first place. That is key to our approach and values, and what we want to achieve.

What were the gaps in community engagement 10 years ago and how have those evolved over the decade? 

Conventional methods involve finding a community and asking them about their needs. The question of trying to find out what they need is challenging, and depending on how you ask and who is asking, you can get very different results. For example, a conventional method for demand estimation is you engage with the community and conduct household energy audits, but as many of us in the sector acknowledge, this doesn’t always work. Demand estimation has been a tough nut to crack in mini-grid development. For off-grid communities, surveys and questionnaires don’t always make sense. Questions around what are you going to do with electricity and what things you want are very difficult questions to answer; they’re related to so many different things like income, who lives in the house, my kids are going to grow and what are they going to do, so all these questions are really difficult for people to answer directly. Some might think it’s overcomplicating the issue because electricity provision involves a technical question that can be answered with a technical solution, and that you are just trying to answer some questions with numbers; but when you are talking about electricity use, it’s about people’s behaviour, it’s not just about numbers. 

I think unless you have a very strong relationship with the community where you really understand what they need and what they could potentially evolve into, you are more than likely to get the wrong answers to those very technical questions. At the same time, it is really hard for organizations to spend a lot of time and build that trust and relationship with the community. So these are some of the gaps I observed and wanted to work with. 

There has to be some kind of process that would make it a meaningful exchange. That’s why I started looking at the field of anthropology and social science, and how they approach a community to obtain objective information. It also cannot be a one-way, extractive exchange because communities are going to receive this big piece of technology, so they are going to have to learn things, and change, and build their own capacities to manage and operate. So, it has to be a two-way exchange. The one-way process was part of the community engagement that practitioners or project developers conventionally do where they collect information and think in exchange, they will give the community electricity and that would be sufficient, but it’s not.

The community really has to engage with the process as well and from the very beginning. To me, it’s a no-brainer because you get a better designed system! If engaged, people are better able to tell you what they need, what they will do with the electricity, and they are more invested in it, which leads to a higher success rate. Also 10 years ago, we saw more abandoned systems because it was so easy to fall short on the design and mis-appropriately size the system. I think now because of technological advances, we’re getting better at it and there are more options available for electrification, but it is still very much through technology and not through a people-driven process.

Could you tell me a bit more about the gaps in energy access practices locally and internationally, and the shortcomings of traditional approaches?

I think the gaps and the shortcomings are the same both locally and internationally. Everybody recognizes community engagement is very important, very key, but I don’t think we invest enough in processes to do it robustly. There has been very little investment going into developing and researching new approaches to the community engagement side of mini-grid development. So far, we have seen research institutes and universities come up with frameworks or a process. But framework and processes are, while they provide useful learning and outcomes, still not easy enough to scale up and deploy. And that's why as an organization, we decided to develop a tool for community engagement, focusing on demand exploration for mini-grid developers. 

There needs to be more effort into looking at community engagement and the opportunities, and asking ourselves how do we solve problems and gaps? We need to go further than the just fulfilling project requirements for community engagement. So far, community engagement has become the catch all phrase for any kind of engagement process but we know that there are different levels and outcomes to engagement. You can have engagement that’s one way and very extractive and you can have engagement that’s two way, but perhaps there is a lack of ownership, on the community side. What you really want is community engagement where there is ownership, there is two-way exchange, and there is capacity building happening on all sides. That’s the level of engagement we really need to push for in energy access and mini-grid deployments. 

​Once I could actually put language to it, I started realizing more and more that it happens more often than it should. I think I have been really lucky because I was so ignorant of it for so long and it didn’t stop me nor occur to me that it was happening to me because I was female. Although I think I was lucky; I definitely realize that isn’t the case for other women and with some women, it stops them from continuing and that’s what need to prevent from happening. I think now that I am aware of it, I can’t go back to how it was before. I see it now and can recognize when it happens to me, when somebody treats me differently just because I am female and they think I am less capable or technically incompetent. But being in the position that I am now, I am better placed to deal with it and hopefully I can do something about it too.

What we don’t do is we don’t enforce gender perspectives on the community because we recognize that all the communities are at different points when talking about gender equality and equity, and we have to be sensitive to that. If communities recognize themselves as gender unequal, then we will support them wanting to find ways to make things more gender equal. But if communities don’t recognize it despite our workshops and process, then we believe it’s not our place to do anything about. That has been our approach so far. ​

​For instance, we don’t promise that there will be an equal gender ratio when we form a Village Electrification Committee, because in some cases women may not want to be involved in that capacity.  However, if we find in our workshops that women want to be involved but they don’t have an opportunity, then it is important to us that we try and do something about that. If everybody is okay with the status quo, then we accept that. Yes, you can argue that acceptance is due to a lack of exposure. That may be true. But that’s why it’s also important for our team to have healthy gender balances and when communities see female teams like ours visiting them, we hope that that provides some exposure as well. But if, after this exposure and our gender workshops, they still make the decision to not do anything about things, we should respect that.

What motivates you to keep on doing the work you are doing?

I really like working with communities. I think communities, and especially rural communities, have such a special role to play in the world. First of all, regardless of what governments or anybody else tells you, rural communities are on the front line of renewable energy and the transition. Unlike urban communities, rural communities don’t have much of a choice. They use decentralized renewable energy systems because they have to, and remember, off-grid communities have been using these systems way longer than urban users. I feel like that’s something that people forget, or they don’t think of. That rural communities are on the frontlines of climate change issues and the transition. And the transition to renewable energy for them is a live or die situation for survival. I learn a lot from these communities and being able to work with them is what motivates me.

Since 1984, SIBAT has fostered a network of dedicated, local champions committed to advancing sustainable solutions in their communities. A country-wide Filipino people’s network, SIBAT supports renewable energy applications, sustainable agriculture techniques, and water access solutions.

SIBAT’s community-based, sustainable approach has enabled long-lasting energy access for many communities in Abra, Philippines. Last year, SIBAT upgraded the Barangay Dulao micro hydro system, which had been in operation for 25 years! Local capacity building is an important element of their sustainable approach, and is supported through training offered at SIBAT’s Center for Renewable Energy and Appropriate Technology (CREATech) in Capas, Tarlac, Philippines. In fact, SIBAT takes part in knowledge sharing to build capacity across the region; for instance, in 2019, practitioners from Philippines and Malaysia gathered for a training session on Pelton micro hydro turbine fabrication, organized by SIBAT and HPNET.

To stay in the loop on SIBAT’s inspiring community-centred work, we encourage you to scroll through and ‘like’ SIBAT’s Facebook page. There you’ll find insightful updates on technical training for local community members, open source mini-grid management tools, videos featuring socio-economic impacts of energy access, and much more. Recently, SIBAT has shared updates on their efforts to distribute facemasks and supplies to vulnerable, indigenous communities. Be sure to ‘like’ SIBAT’s page to show your support and learn about their ongoing initiatives.
​

We’re excited to share the new edition of our video podcast series Streamside Chats!  The platform allows us to dialogue with experienced practitioners about their in-depth experiences in developing sustainable hydro mini-grids. It brings together grassroots innovators and international experts, providing firsthand insights from the field, framed within multi-thematic analysis. 

Intro to Speakers

Dipti Vaghela, the Manager of the Hydro Empowerment Network (HPNET), introduces the speakers, Bikash Pandey, Director of Clean Energy at Winrock International, and Bir Bahadur Ghale, Founder and Managing Director of Hydro Concern Pvt. Ltd. and provides an overview of the topic.  Both speakers are renown for their pioneering work of over 35 years.
​

PART 1:  Start up and scale up of hydro mini-grids in Nepal

Dipti chats with Bikash about the key actors that paved the way for micro hydro development in Nepal and the stages through which the sector evolved over the past four decades.  The micro hydro sector is known to have its earliest roots in Nepal within the S/SE Asia region.  In this discussion, we delve into the pivotal reasons for which the country has one of the most dynamic micro hydro programs around the world.  Tune in to hear how multi-actor collaboration resulted in an ecosystem that scaled-up hydro mini grids, enabling energy access in over 3000 communities in rural Nepal. 
​

PART 2:  Impact of a social enterprise approach

Bikash dialogues with Bir Bahadur, taking us on a journey of the renown Barpak hydro mini-grid, developed by Bir Bahadur Ghale in his home village 1991, when he was 24 years of age.  Being his first project and having no previous experience, he shares the obstacles he encountered and how he overcame them, including acquiring technical and financial skills to go onto developing hundreds of projects to date.  We also learn about the impact of the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Barpak, the epicenter of the disaster, the rehabilitation of the micro hydro project, and the critical role it played in rebuilding the village and its economy.  Established using a social enterprise approach, 30 years later the Barpak project is a prime example of a hydro mini-grid that is self-sustainable, providing electricity to over 1200 and many village-based enterprises. Bir Bahadur Ghale's approach has transformed the economic resilience of the community.
​

PART 3:  Best practices for economic resilience

In this final part of the 3-part dialogue, we learn about Bir Bahadur Ghale's journey beyond Barpak, gaining insight on how energy access can be accelerated by proven developers.  The dialogue also discusses different types of ownership models and the factors for success of each.  The conversation concludes with policy recommendations to accelerate energy access in Nepal, and the role of energy access in pandemic era economic recovery. 
​​

Join the discussion!​

Over the next few days, we’ll be posting the questions below, in our post-Chat social media forum.  Share your insights on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
​

• How can governments better support local manufacturers, producing local jobs and enhancing skill sets?
• What are the different roles that subsidies and loans have in scaling up mini-grids?  Can they complement each other?
• What can help enable communities to identify financially viable productive end use?
• What productive end uses can especially be leveraged by and benefit women?  
• How have mini-grids played a role in economic recovery and resilience of communities in the pandemic age ? 
• What types of policies can support community-private partnerships to accelerate energy access?

​
In case you missed it
​
Check out our first edition of StreamSide Chats in which we discussed the role of micro hydro in contributing to long term rural economic recovery and resilience in the pandemic era. 

📽️:  StreamSide Chats - Edition 1, Recovery & Resilience

The transition to successful social enterprise requires a number of core elements (as shown below).  The foundational elements focus on functionality, namely quality of technical design and installation, as well as the condition of the catchment area that dictates the seasonal and long-term consistency of the water flow.  These have been discussed in previous posts, discussing the need for technical standards and watershed strengthening.
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This quarter we spotlight the SEEED elements that can be achieved once reliability is established,  namely productive end use and inclusive enterprise aspects that bring value-add to local livelihoods.   

We will soon collaborate with partners to further analyze best practices within each of these sub-elements. The following examples of enterprise-based hydro mini-grids continue to inspire and refine our approach to the SEEED initiative, in terms of management, ownership, productive end use, and livelihoods enhancement aspects.

Asia Pacific 

• Winrock Nepal economically revived five micro hydro projects in Nepal, using a peer-to-peer approach, supported by WISIONS.  Read more here.
• The association Hydropower for Community Empowerment in Myanmar (HyCEM) is transitioning to cooperative-based models for hydro mini-grids.  Read more here.
• Hydropower Concern Ltd., under the leadership of Bir Bahadur Ghale in Nepal, uses a developer-owned approach that has led to high productive end use and economic resilience.  Read more here.
• The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) has established community-owned mini-hydropower utilities that are electrifying entire valleys, while nurturing women-led enterprise.  Read more here.

Africa 

• Energising Development (EnDev) Ethiopia is initiating a process to revive micro hydro projects, in order to instill optimization in end use and long-term sustainability using an enterprise-based approach. ​ Read more here.
• ​The Association des Ingénieurs pour le Développement des Energies Renouvelables (AIDER) installs and operates micro hydro systems in Madagascar.  Read more here. 

Latin America 

• Association of Rural Development Workers—Benjamin Linder (ATDER-BL) has interconnected multiple hydro mini-grids with each other, providing electricity to a sub-region in northern Nicaragua.  Read more here.

As a part of our knowledge exchange process (below), we continue to look for additional examples for peer-to-peer exchange, in order to collectively advance community-scale hydropower.  If you would like to share about your approach to sustainable hydro mini-grids, please let us know here!