Socio-Technical Sustainability of Micro/Mini Hydropower in Rural Off-Grid Communities - A Case Study of Swat and Buner District

Abstract

The off-grid rural poor living in remote areas in the northern region of Pakistan. The uneven surface, varying elevations and availability of water in the area offers an ideal condition for micro/mini hydropower installations. The study covered technical and social sustainability of MHP’s in the far flung off grid rural areas of district Swat and Buner. The detailed questionnaire was designed and field visits were conducted for 25 functional and 4 malfunctioning MHP’s, and relevant peoples such as operators and secretaries were interviewed and views of them were noted and analysis of the questionnaire was done in detail. Three key performance indicators capacity, number of beneficiary households and the distance from NGS were analyzed while considering two main factors technical and social in evaluation. Capacity of the schemes against performance indicates that the projects above 30 kw are performing better in technical aspects. Socially the schemes with capacity below or equal to 30 kw are performing well and being easily managed by the community as the schemes are small and shared by a smaller number of beneficiary households which results in less disputes. The evaluation of MHPs based upon distances indicates that technically and socially performance is better as the schemes are closer to NGS. The people living in remote areas are comparatively less developed and they can hardly manage and operate these schemes. Technical performance is increasing as the number of households increase, while in social aspects the performance is decreasing with increase in households because more people connected to the system results in more conflicts and disputes. The assessmnent of all these functional MHPs indicates that the social performance is average and above average and technical performance is of average. In most of the MHPs present capacity was found lower than the time of their installations because of miss management and poor planning which lead to create some technical and social problems. The study concluded that capacity building of the community is required to better operate and maintain these schemes by themselves and sense of ownership is needed among the communities.