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Recent headlines of fire breakout in some   hotel establishments and consequent loss of human lives have shaken the spirit of every individual. The cause for such ill fateful happenings is just not accidental but is a result of lack of awareness of general safety precautions regardless of where you live or work. In most of the instances apart from other hazards, deficiencies in the complex electrical systems often lead to catastrophic fires.   A systematic approach to identify the possible deficiencies in electrical circuits and appliances and creating awareness among all and one towards possible lapses and shortcomings in equipment and appliances is of vital importance to ensure safe environment especially at living and work place. It’s therefore incumbent upon organizations to conduct safety audits including electrical safety and fire safety to comply with laws or regulations and provide a safe workplace for everyone.

 “MOUNT HIM ”   who have  accredited  experts in safety and energy audits have offered help in ensuring safety of industrial and residential establishments and  identifying and correcting deficiencies in these areas of concern of safety.

Energy audit:  Industrial and   residential establishments  incur huge amount of expenses towards energy. At  the same time lot of wastage of energy take place due to in-appropriate/in-efficient appliances and equipment, which   is a  matter of serious concern.  Hence each establishment needs to   conduct an energy audit which is of vital importance and specially recommended to identify the load pattern, inefficient energy appliances, lighting, air- conditioning, pumps-motors etc. in the premises and replacing them suitably for lowering the increasing energy cost. MOUNT HIM offers the services of its  energy experts and auditors  who are accredited by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). Going by the old adage ‘what gets measured, gets managed’  attempt should be made to quantify aspects such as energy consumption and its optimization through the best technology in energy management, control and reduce the same to the best possible extent. Auditors on the panel of MOUNT HIM  have conducted energy audits of numerous industrial, institutional and residential establishments and  helped the utilities in adopting measures which have  resulted in to cost saving of substantial order.

From the  Paper  titled “RECENT TRENDS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES: HYDRO POWER A SUSTAINABLE OPTION ” presented by our MD , Mr. Kanti  Prasad at the all India Seminar on “Renewable Energy for Sustainable Development” organized by Institution of Engineers (I), Ghaziabad Chapter on 27-28 July 2018

ABSTRACT 

Today worldwide the focus is on renewable energy (RE) with the objective of reducing dependency on fossil fuel due to compelling environmental concerns, growing demand and rising price of electric energy. India has set a fabulous target of achieving 175 GW of RE by 2022. This includes 60   GW of large and medium-scale grid connected solar power projects, 60 GW of wind, 40 GW of solar rooftop projects, and 10 GW of bio-power and        5 GW of small hydro.    Hydroelectric, which is a renewal energy source depending upon natural water has tremendous potential in India.  It’s considered as a primary source of sustainable power supply. This paper presents the current status of hydro power and underlines the need of its development as a sustainable option for meeting India’s huge demand of electric power. The illustrations in this write up show the shares of various power sources in India and worldwide.

Key words: Renewable energy, hydro power, sustainable energy,

Introduction

Hydro power has a long history of over 2000 years. It has come to present state through stages of evolution of technology, from a water wheel to high power generators. With the advancing technologies hydro power plants are capable of generating large power output with higher efficiency. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) hydro power is the most flexible source of electric power generation to meet the base load and peak demand, and is capable of responding to demand fluctuations in a short time sequence.  Hydro power constitutes 80% of the global renewable energy and it produces around 16% of total electricity throughout the world. ^[2] It has significant future potential, based on its continued development in a sustainable framework. Solar, Wind and other form of renewable energy such as biomass, have significant place in power development programme of developing countries like India. These renewable energy sources being variable by nature require integrating facilities to deliver firm power effectively into the electricity network. Hydro power, in particular the reservoir and pumped storage schemes is an ideal provider of sustainable energy on large scale economically. Hydro power has two vital features one, storage capacity and two, fast response characteristics, which distinguish it from other renewable energy sources, are valuable to meet the critical requirement of supporting the grid during sudden fluctuations in electricity demand.

The importance of hydro power is clearly reflected in  the “Implementing Agreement for A Cooperative Program on Hydro power Technologies and Program (as amended to 21 March 2006)”  of The  International Energy Agency (IEA). Quote: “Hydroelectric power is by far the most important renewable resource that electric utilities have in place, accounting for roughly one-fifth of total electricity production in the world as a whole. Yet significant opportunities remain for further hydro power development, both through maintenance, refurbishment and upgrading of facilities in place and through selective construction of new facilities, especially in developing countries which possess abundant hydro potential”.   India is endowed with tremendous hydro potential. Despite its many advantages and availability of emerging technologies, hydro power’s growth in India is far behind the given target. Hydro power has become extremely questionable in some quarters due to certain aspects of hydro projects especially, the implementation impacting the environment, and lack of proper approach in addressing the various issues involved in implementation, both on the part of the state and promoters.

*Source- CBIP

“Central Board of Irrigation & Power  (CBIP), New Delhi  has brought out  the revised and updated version of manual on “Renovation, Modernisation, Uprating  & Life Extension of Hydro power Plant”   in association with experts from all eminent organizations/utilities/consultants in the country. The manual covers overview of R&M activities of hydro power plants,  and also covers exhaustively Methodology and Engineering of Renovation and Uprating of HPPs including Hydro Turbine and auxiliaries , Hydro generators and auxiliaries, Power Transformers, Civil Structures, Control metering and Protection system, Plant electrical and mechanical systems,Gates and hydro mechanical equipment , Quality Assurance  Plans  and funding options & contracts for RMU & LE of hydro power stations. The manual also contains many case studies connected with the subject for the benefit of prospective users as reference material and   guide to tackle similar problems. This will help address various issues and problems in the appropriate perspective”.

Our Director Mr Kanti Prasad, was the member of the Expert Group constituted  by CBIP under the Chairmanship of   Mr. S.D.Dubey, Chairperson, Central Electricity Authority  (CEA)  for  drafting  this manual.