News in SHP

2002 Sino-African SHP Training Workshop

The 2002 Sino-African SHP Training Workshop was held from 10 May to 18 June 2002 at Hangzhou Regional Center for Small Hydro Power (HRC). Attended altogether 9 participants from 5 African countries, i.e. Burundi, Nigeria, South African, Tanzania and Tunisia. This is the second training workshop on SHP that HRC conducted for African countries. Last Oct and Nov HRC held the SHP training for participants from Africa where the majority of the population has no access to electricity yet. Meanwhile, it is abundant in hydro power resources in Africa and around 10% of its hydro power potential has been harnessed according to the statistics available.

This training workshop was sponsored by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, as one of the technical collaborative projects among the developing countries. All the lodging, boarding, training, pocket money and the domestic transportation fees were borne by the Chinese government. This is part of the Chinese contribution to South-South cooperation.

Most of the teachers were from HRC, with some professors or experts invited from Nanjing. The subjects included procedures of SHP development, feasibility study, hydro-logical analysis, low-cost civil structure, turbo-generator units and auxiliary, electric equipment design, operation, maintenance, SlIP policy aspects etc. Such special topics as the status of hydro power resources in China, SHP technical refurbishment, rubber dam, the pumped storage stations, foreign trade practices, letter of credit, export credit etc were also introduced and considered by the participants as beneficial.

In the hardware construction, HRC updated its facilities for the international participants early this year. The class room was decorated and living rooms renovated. New equipment including CD-writer and new advanced computer were purchased for the use of the participants.

Study tour was arranged to Shengzhou, Linai, Ningbo, Xiaoshan and Deqing where the participants visited some SHP stations of various development types, com-bining the techniques of low-cost civil structures and appropriate automation controlling equipment. Visits were paid to Linhai Machinery Works and Linhai Electric Machine Works where participants were able to see the whole process of the hydropower equipment manufacturing. Director of Linhai Machinery Works, Mr. Hu pointed out: "there is so far no export of our electrical equipment to the African countries. However, the potential of SHP in African countries is in fact huge. It is expected that the SHP cooperation between China and Africa could be set up, either in our equipment export or establishing joint venture firms in African continent.'' Visit was also paid to Kvaemer Hangzhou Power Equipment Co Ltd, a joint venture set up in 1996 between Kvaemer Energy as. in Norway and Hangzhou Electric Equipment Works in Hangzhou, China.

Participants went to Ningbo, visiting a pumped storage station with installed capacity of 80 MW. This station was put into operation at the end of 1997 and was designed by HRC in the past few years. It has a big role to play for the station to provide energy to the grids at the peak hour and its financial record all these years after the commissioning is also impressive.

At the end of the training workshop, HRC provided a forum for the exchange of SHP experience and technology. The African participants were earnest to prepare and to offer their presentations. Altogether around 5 presentations were made by the participants, introducing the SHP development status, experiences and lessons learnt in the practice of developing SHP in their own countries. For instance, the presentation by the Nigerian participants gave a detailed description of what is required concerning the country's SHP development status, experience and potential of SHP international cooperation. Nearly all of the African friends were able to adopt the Power Point to give the presentation. Some of their presentations are being considered to be issued at the quarterly SlIP News that HRC edits and publishes.

In addition to training and study tours, sightseeing programs at the weekends and sports competition were arranged by HRC. Participants were able to enjoy the natural beauty of some scenic spots in Hangzhou. The basketball match between the Chinese players and the African participants offered a glimpse of tenacious spirit manifested by the African participants. Also, two days were spent in the developing city, the largest city and port of China-Shanghai. With the opening and reforming policy set forth by the Chinese govemment some 20 years ago, tremendous changes have taken place in that city. A great number of skyscrapers pop up, with its modem and convenient transportation network. Participants naturally exhilarated to be in such a modern city like Shanghai. Many of the participants commented: 'We certainly did not expect that China is so much developed. We thought this is not in Shanghai, but in New York. Before we came to China, we had a delusion that China was a poor and backward country. The buildings there were shabby and indecent. People were suffering from hunger. China has set a very good example for the other developing countriers like those in Africa to follow in its economic development'.

HRC is committed to stimulating the development of SHP-a renewable and environmentally sound energy by conducting SHP training programs each year. In 2003 HRC will implement at least two small hydro power training workshops including one for African countries and the ex-act time of implementation will be announced later this year. It is hoped that more hydro power resources could be tapped in future so that the living standard of the local people could be improved and their local economy could be boomed in the numerous African countries.