1 Indian Initiative to Develop Standards, Guidelines and Manuals for Small Hydropower

Global increase in electricity requirement and renewed interest in renewable energy sources makes the small hydropower (SHP) development a subject of interest worldwide. There is a series of standards, guidelines and manuals on hydropower issued by international standards organizations like ISO, IEC, IEEE, ASME, USBR and the national statuary bodies of several countries, including India. But most of them were prepared keeping in view the large water / hydropower projects. SHP needs to be made profitable and a long-term investment opportunity, while ensuring quality and reliability of the power. The issues and concerns in developing special standards, guidelines and manuals for SHP have been identified and the efforts of Government of India have been detailed in this paper. The initiative to prepare about 25 standards for SHP projects is reported