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Climate Colab

Aug 13, 2014
04:21

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Hydroelectric power, when available, is usually among the least expensive methods of generating electricity. In the developing world, there are many communities that are not connected to a national power grid and who must get power from small scale diesel generators. These are relatively inexpensive to install, but can be costly to run. Some of these communities may be located in regions with some hydroelectric potential. In these situations, replacing the diesel generators with small scale hydroelectric facilities could be cost effective. Any such replacement would help the environment by eliminating, or greatly reducing, the emissions associated with the displaced diesel generators.However, I believe, some additional information is needed before the feasibility of this proposal can be fairly assessed. For example, - How much would a working hydro facility cost for the pilot community?- How representative is the pilot community? That is, would other applications be expected to be somewhat more or less expensive?- What are the key factors driving facility's cost?- Many regions do not have any hydro power potential and some of those who do have already developed the resource. What is the actual size of the market for this application? If all the suitable locations were developed, what would be the maximum possible reduction in emissions?- How would the proposed association be more effective at developing these hydro power applications than the sales groups of engineering firms currently working in this sector?- How would the funds be raised? What return would investors be expected to receive?- Power generation in many regions is strictly regulated. What licensing and regulatory obstacles would need to be overcome? Is permitting required? What lead time is required to get the necessary regulatory approval?- How will the electricity be metered? How will the community pay for the power? What would be the cost of building a metering, billing, and collections process? Can the initial investment in such a system be recovered from future installations?- This is a solid proposal. The proposed actions and outcome are well described. However, the proposed benefits are not well described. The proposal indicates that the average transaction costs for CDM projects is $63000 USD. What proportion of total project costs for a small hydro power project does this represent? Is there an estimate for how much this figure could be reduced with the HCSRM? The HCSRM certainly will not reduce transaction costs to nothing. Also, the proposal indicates that the global small hydro power potential is 173GW but then indicates that global production could rise to 2000 GW by 2050. Are both of these figures accurate? How is this reconciled?

Mark Johnson

Aug 14, 2014
09:46

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Please share the genesis of the $63K transaction cost per deployed unit.

Julian Carmona

Aug 25, 2014
10:27

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Is a well structured proposal, with potentially great impact for people not connected to the grid

Climate Colab

Sep 3, 2014
12:27

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The contributors propose a scheme to use small scale Hydroelectric power plants to provide electricity to communities in off-grid areas. Many questions raised by judges in the first phase remain unanswered. In addition we should outline two fundamental mismatches: - the scheme of "standardization" of hydroelectric power, whereby this technology is one of the least "standard" as it heavily depend on the local site characteristic to study the resource, the engineering and construction of the plant. - the context, outlined by the contributor of low local skills with the use of a renewable energy technology that requires significant skills during the operation vs the lower level needed by solar or wind. It is not clear how many of the barriers to small scale hydropower development (utilizing CDM funding) would be tackled by this project. It is also not clear that the proposed actions would actually reduce these barriers substantially.

Diego Cornejo Barra

Jul 9, 2015
05:00

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Judges would be interested to know: 1. Where he comes up with the 63,000 USD per project. 2. Where else can this be implemented? 3. Can you show the numbers for the 1200 rural families that would benefit from this. 4. What is maintenance like? Thank you and keep up the good work