Introduction

Hydropower is called renewable source of energy because it uses and not consumes the water for generation of electricity, and the hydropower leaves this vital resource available for other uses.
Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has been vested with the responsibility of developing Small Hydro Power (SHP) projects up to 25 MW station capacities
Estimated potential 20GW and target is 5GW
Most of the potential is in Himalayan States as river-based projects and in other States on irrigation canals.
Ex: Water Mill in Uttarakhand

Benefits

To lower the cost of equipment, increase its reliability and set up projects in areas which give the maximum advantage in terms of capacity utilization

Micro: Up to 100 KW
Mini: 101KW to 2 MW
Small: 2 MW to 25 MW
Mega: Hydro projects with installed capacity >= 500 MW and Thermal Projects with installed capacity >=1500 MW

Hydel Projects less than 25MW comes under purview of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Hydel Projects above 25MW comes under purview of Ministry of Power