BOKAKHAT,ASSAM :: Visualise a small power plant in your backyard generating electricity and lighting your home, or a turbine on the banks of a stream powering your village.
This could become a reality in Assam with the government all set to replicate a model using a turbine that can capture energy from the flow of water without dams. 'We have formulated the Assam Small Hydro Power Development Policy to encourage individuals or communities to set up power plants from 1 MW to 25 MW by generating electricity from the many rivulets, streams, and rivers in the state with the government reimbursing 90 percent of the cost,' Power Minister Pradyut Bordoloi told IANS. The dream project to harness the power of river currents to generate enough electricity to power all the towns and villages is based on a path breaking technique devised by Alexander Gorlov, an emeritus mechanical engineering professor and director of the Hydro-Pneumatic Power Laboratory at Northeastern University at Boston in the US. 'We have arranged a consultant to work out and liaise to import the technology that is already successful in Brazil and South Korea,' the minister said. Brazil is currently producing about 1,200 MW of electricity based on Gorlov's model of tapping power from flowing water. The estimated cost for a hydro plant generating 1 MW of electricity would be about Rs.50 million. 'To make this mission a reality, we have made the process simple - no permission required to set up the plant, but just a concurrence from the government so that modalities could be worked out to buy any excess power generated from such small projects,' Bordoloi said. Gorlov's turbine is unique because it can generate power from flowing water, not necessarily on a high gradient. With Assam boasting of many such sources of flowing water in the form of rivers, streams, and rivulets, the model has the potential to click. 'With the new Northeast Industrial Policy to be announced next week, we expect certain incentives for the power sector, and this model could just work wonders and revolutionise the entire power sector in general,' the minister said. At present Assam buys electricity of about 600 MW a day from the national grid. Just 18 percent of homes in rural areas are electrified. Assam needs about 800 MW of electricity daily, and the demand is expected to double by 2011. 'If this project works out according to plan, not only would power reach the villages and rural areas, the economy of the state could just boom,' Bordoloi said. The idea to hunt for new technologies to generate power was floated by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi when he recalled seeing such small machines set up in the backyard of British tea planters in Assam to light up their bungalows. 'My father worked in a tea garden and I remember as a kid seeing the sahib operating a fan to cool himself using some machine set up near a stream. I told Bordoloi to find out if we could do the same thing once again,' Gogoi said. KOUSHIK HAZARIKA http://www.asom.co.nr
