OPTIMISATION OF SHP SCHEMES IN UTTARANCHAL

Abstract

Energy is an important input in all sectors of any country's economy. The standard of living of a given country can be directly related to per capita energy consumption. Energy crisis due to the two reasons: firstly that the population of the world has increased rapidly and secondly the standard of living of human beings has increased. Demand of energy is increasing day by day. To meet the ever increasing demand it is necessary to identify the renewable sources of energy. The hydropower projects are one of the sustainable and environmentally sound ways to develop the new energy sources. Utteranchal is one of few the Indian states, which has ample potential of hydropower development. Cost of the hydropower project depends on mainly two variable head and capacity of generation. The cost also includes the other cost such as equipment and operating cost. Keeping this in view a study entitled "Optimization of SHP in Utteranchal" was planned. The data relating to total cost, head, capacity and year of planning of projects were collected for 22 sites in the state. The total cost of the project varies from 7.47 lacs to 1382.64 lacs for the capacity ranging from 40 kW to 3000 kW, with the operating head of 8.1 m to 443 m. The most of projects were planned in the year 1994, to compare the costs of the projects it was converted to present cost taking 10 % rate of annual interest. The raw data had high variability in it. Values of standard deviation, 871.43 for capacity, 354.81 for head and moderately acceptable of 1.16 for present per unit cost were observed. To avoid this it was converted to log series. T