In July 2003, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy or MNRE (at that time known as Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources or MNES) of the Government of India (GoI) made, through a public notification, satisfactory performance of new Small Hydro Power (SHP) projects a mandatory requirement for receiving financial assistance in the form of a subsidy from GoI. Towards implementation of this policy, the MNRE provided necessary funds to the Alternate Hydro Energy Centre (AHEC) of Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee to create infrastructure and facilities required for the performance testing of new SHP stations throughout India. The MNRE also notified a scheme of financial assistance to old SHP projects for their renovation, modernization and up-rating (RMU), subject to a prior and convincing study supported by detailed testing of various parts/ components of the SHP station.
Dr. H.K. Verma, then a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Roorkee, and Dr. Arun Kumar, then Chief Scientific Officer and Head, AHEC, IIT Roorkee, created the necessary infrastructure and facilities in AHEC for
(a) Complete performance testing of new SHP stations; and
(b) RMU study including detailed testing of civil, hydraulic, electrical, mechanical and hydro-mechanical parts and components of old SHP projects.
Starting in the year 2004, performance testing of more than 100 new SHP stations and RMU study of seven old SHP stations were carried out under the leadership of Prof HK Verma before he retired from IIT Roorkee in June 2012. His involvement continued for some more time as an external expert/ consultant. During the period of 2004-2012, Prof HK Verma also delivered several invited talks and specialist lectures to SHP and hydro-electric professionals at national and international courses/ workshops in India and abroad.
Some of the talks/ lectures/ presentations of Prof. H.K. Verma are made available in this section of the portal as text files and/or slides after some editing. The date shown on the slides is the date of the latest presentation made. These talks/ lectures/ presentations are preceded by two very useful articles: One, Hydropower Development in India, a paper jointly authored by Dr. Praveen Saxena, then Director, MNRE and Dr Arun Kumar. Two, An Overview of Hydropower, which in fact is the Executive Summary of a 60-page chapter on Hydropower in “IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation”, 2011; Dr Arun Kumar is the first author of this Chapter.
The material can be accessed through the links shown below:
Hydropower Development in India (2010)
Performance Testing of SHP Stations in India (10 pages) (2012)
Performance Testing of Small Hydro Power Stations in India (50 slides) (2012)
Renovation, Modernization and Uprating of SHP Stations (6 pages) (2013)
Renovation, Modernization and Uprating of Small Hydro-Power Stations (40 slides) (2013)