The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India, with
its concern to improve the quality and performance of SHP stations in the country, felt for long a need to create a
system of performance evaluation by a neutral agency at low costs. In July 2003, the MNRE (at that time known as
Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources - MNES) issued a notification linking its subsidy support for SHP projects to
their performance. The Alternate Hydro Energy Centre (AHEC) of the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITR) was
identified as the test agency for this purpose.
At IITR, a multi-disciplinary team was formed to carry out performance testing of SHP stations, and necessary portable
test equipment was procured out of the funds provided by MNRE. The charges for testing small hydropower stations were
fixed in consultation with MNRE. By now this multi-specialty group has carried out performance testing of over 40 SHP
stations of different types and capacities and in different parts of the country.
As the performance testing is expected to be carried out in various parts of this vast country on a large number of SHP
stations every year, IITR has associated experts from some reputed institutions, namely Jadavpur University at Kolkata,
Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology at Bhopal and Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology at
Jalandhar. The coordination of the entire activity is done by AHEC, IITR.
This information brochure explains the objective, scope and methodology of performance testing and gives a list of the
relevant national and international standards. For the convenience of the power station owners, formats for
supplying the power station and generation data and the fee schedule for testing are also included. Soft-copy of the
formats are available on
www.iitr.ac.in/departments/AH/uploads/File/Performance_testing_brochure.pdf
