SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE 3^rd GLOBAL FORUM ON
HYDROPOWER FOR TODAY

The Third Global Forum on ‘Hydropower for Today’ is concluding successfully today in the conference hall of the International Network on Small Hydro Power (IN-SHP). The Forum had 188 delegates - 66 from 26 countries abroad and 122 from China – and an extensive array of presentations were made. The Forum after discussing various problems faced by most of the developing countries for the speedy development of the most urgent SHP development, looking at various approaches to their solutions form Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Europe and exchanging views on how best the needy regions in Asia and Africa could be best served by the most appropriate small hydro power solutions.

The Forum had the benefit of 27 learned presentations from researchers and practitioners of SHP from all over the world in 7 technical sessions, chaired by an International Presidium for each session.

The delegates were given insights into some interesting new technology developments like the further improvements in the updraft free exit flow turbine, giving hope of giving a weight reduction to one third of the normal turbines, cost reduction of 30-60% over conventional axial flow turbines and making it environmentally and fish friendly, avoiding the costly draft tube too. We have, of course, to wait for its commercialization in the near future. The other technological innovation reported was the studies conducted simultaneously in China and Finland on performance prediction of Bulb turbines by flow simulation and bringing prediction and reality to closer distance.

Further, the presentations at the Forum brought out clearly the regional/country status of hydropower development and the policy structures prevailing in the countries represented here, highlighting success, failures and lessons learned with the impacts of policies in focus. Many developing country presentations were concerned realizing the Millennium Development Goals of poverty alleviation and employment generation through provision of energy to rural areas. Also highlighted were, the need to upgrade the traditionally built hydropower plants and the water mills in Asia and Africa which are used for grain grinding (200,000 in India alone) and take up more hydropower projects – small and micro/pico hydro power. These would go in line with the proposed massive project on Lighting up Africa and would help in creating and maintaining energy markets in developing countries, especially in the rural communities.

The papers presented extended further to a variety of other technical and managerial issues specific to small hydropower, such as voltage stability, combining energy efficiency efforts, use of LED lighting, legal issues covering a broad spectrum of hydropower activities including power sector reforms.
    All the members of the Presidium, authors and the institutions and the respective governments involved, as well as the organizers viz. the International Centre on SHP (ICSHP), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), International Energy Agency (IEA), Natural Resources of Canada (NRCan) and the International Network on Small Hydro Power (IN-SHP) did an excellent job in getting so many countries and other stakeholders to participate and to have a wide spectrum of issues discussed at the Forum.

The People’s Republic of China and IN-SHP declared their intention to actively participate in the Lighting Up Africa programme and announced the re-naming of IN-SHP to International Association for Small Hydro Power for registration within China, the structure and office bearers remaining the same.