Hydro EMPowerment Network
Knowledge Exchange for Community Micro Hydro in South and Southeast Asia
The Hydro Empowerment Network aims to advance sustainable small-scale hydropower for community empowerment in the global South. Its goals are to provide an effective south-south knowledge exchange platform and to transform knowledge exchange into action, by building the capacity of local change agents.
Hydro Empowerment Network News
HPNETs Review of 2019 and outlook for 2020!
News from WISIONS posted on January 27th, 2020
Our diligent partner, the Hydro Empowerment Network, published their review their work in 2019, presenting you the latest news on micro hydropower actvities worldwide! Read more about the latest stories below! In this edition HPNET reviews stories and activities from 2019, covering a broad variety of events, exchanges and stories. Here is a short overview about all the activities:
- Regional Exchanges with Green Empowerment, gathering with practitioners and Deep Dive Workshop with WISIONS at ACEF in Manila.
- Bilateral Exchanges between different micro hydro practitioners all over Southeast Asia - from Malaysia to the Philipines, Indonesia and even further- to create partnerships and knowledge exchanges!
- In-country exchages in several countries in Asia to advocate and promote micro hydro technology within the countries!
- 2019 Mini-Grid Webinar Series, hosted by WISIONS and Energypedia, focusing on thematic solutions for advancing micro-hydro power. All Webinars can also be accessed here: HPNET Webinar Series
- the Hidden-No-More story series about female change makers engaging in hydropower! Stories about couragoues women with ambitions to overcome gender barriers!
- Micro Hydro Toolkit: A set of technical knowledge exchange tools for hydropower practitioners supported by WISIONS!
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Older posts  |
Upcoming events
Introduction
Pico and microhydro power (P/MHP) systems (defined as systems with a capacity smaller than 100 kW) have a huge potential in many remote areas around the world and especially in the humid and hilly regions of South and Southeast Asia. Although micro hydro is well established in several countries in the region, it has yet to reach its full potential.
The needs that are primarily addressed for off-grid communities are electrical services, such as for lighting and communications, as well as productive and agricultural uses such as milling or irrigation. In the current context of high fuel and electricity prices this technology can also play an important role in generating clean electricity in areas that are connected to the national grid, but which suffer from an unreliable electricity supply.
The need to develop a network was
highlighted by several organisations working with WISIONS. As a first
step a workshop was held in February 2012 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which was attended by 10 organisations from the Philippines, Thailand, Lao
PDR, Sri Lanka, India and Nepal, together with members of the WISIONS
team. As a result of the ideas generated during this workshop the Hydro
Empowerment Network was formed. For a list of all members, please visit this link. For details on becoming an HPNET member, please follow this link.
Mission & Goals
- Technology development and innovation for robust implementation
- Policy for sustainable impact and scalability
- Cultivation of local experts, productive uses, and vibrant watersheds
- Technology design and dissemination
- Ground-truthing policy ideas and outputs
- Bottom-up project sustainability mechanisms
Network Gatherings
The meetings provide the opportunity for members to exchange knowledge and ideas in a face-to-face setting; to share experiences, gain new insights and build new partnerships, as well as to further develop and strengthen existing ones.Practice-to-Policy Workshops
HPNET’s practice-to-policy exchanges facilitate practitioners and other MHP multi-actors to understand common goals in order to advance the sector.Technical Training Sessions
HPNET members organise different forms of capacity-building sessions to strengthen the skills of local technicians and community organisers, who are often the first point of contact in local communities, e.g. training courses to build local capacity on concrete pico-hydro turbines, electronic load controllers (ELC) and advocacy through the development of multi-media skills (see details of linked SEPS exchanges in the right column).Online Exchange and Web-Based Knowledge Portal
The different levels of face-to-face exchange are complemented by a network website presenting profiles of the members, members’ online forums and an online library of catalogued micro-hydro documents, multi-media products and a contacts database.Recent Events
The Hydro Empowerment Network hosted a Deep Dive Workshop on 17 June 2019 at the Asia Clean Energy Forum in Manila in collaboration with WISIONS. The topic was "Hydro Mini-Grids in the Asia-Pacific: Scaling Inclusive Enterprise-Based Approaches". You can see the highlights here:
For the initial three years, the regional coordinator responsible for the network activities was the Sri Lankan organisation Janathakshan (GTE).Since 2015, MHP expert Dipti Vaghela (left) has taken over the coordinating role.
