Role of micro-hydropower plants in socio-economic development of rural Afghanistan

Author(s):  
Mohammad Airaj Firdaws Sadiq ◽  
Najib Rahman Sabory ◽  
Mir Sayed Shah Danish ◽  
Tomonobu Senjyu

Afghanistan hosts the Hindu Kush, an extension of the Himalaya mountains that act as water sources for five major rivers flowing through Afghanistan. Most of these rivers provide promise for the construction of water dams and installment of micro hydropower plants (MHP). Although civil war and political strife continue to threaten the country for more than four decades, the Afghan government introduced strategic plans for the development of the country. In 2016 Afghanistan introduced the Afghanistan National Peace and Development (ANPD) Framework at Brussels de-signed to support Afghanistan’s progress towards achieving the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). This study discussed the 7th Goal (ensuring access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy for all) and 8th Goal (promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all) alignment in Afghanistan. The Afghan gov-ernment acknowledges its responsibility to provide electricity for all of its citizens, but this can only be achieved if the government can secure a reliable source of energy. Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain provides a challenge to build a central energy distribution system. Therefore this study looks for alternative solutions to the energy problems in Afghanistan and explores feasibility of micro-hydropower plant installations in remote areas. This study evaluated socio-economic im-pacts of micro-hydropower plants in the life of average residents. We focused on one example of a micro hydropower plant located in Parwan, conducted interviews with local residents, and gath-ered on-site data. The findings in this study can help policymakers to analyze the effects of devel-opment projects in the social and economic life of residents. It will encourage the government and hopefully the private sector to invest in decentralized energy options, while the country is facing an ever-growing energy demand.

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-190
Author(s):  
Kshitiz Khanal ◽  
Bivek Baral

As most nations have adopted the Sustainable Development agenda to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, it is vital that planning of energy systems at local, regional and national levels also align with the agenda in order to achieve the goals. This study explores the sustainability of primary energy resources of a rural community to meet growing demands of the community, in order to achieve SDGs for energy access Goal no. 7 (SDG7) at local level. Using a linear back-casting techno-economic energy access model that informs the expected change in energy demand in order to reach SDG7 targets, this study examined whether local energy resources would be enough to achieve the targets for Barpak VDC (named such at the time of data collection before Nepal’s administrative restructuring), and explored the possibility of importing electricity from national grid to attain SDG7 targets. By analyzing the outputs of the model for Barpak, we found that currently assessed local energy resources are insufficient to meet the energy access targets. Importing electricity from national grid, in addition to the mini-hydropower plant currently in operation at Barpak is needed to achieve the targets. Huge cost investment and timely expansion of transmission and distribution infrastructure is crucial. By 2030, total energy demand is expected to grow up to 50,000 Gigajoules per year. Electricity import from national grid grows steadily, reaching up to 45,000 Gigajoules in 2030. The social costs of energy will continue to be dominated by household sector till 2030, reaching up to 30 million Nepali Rupees per year in total. Use of wood as fuel, the only significant source of emission in the model is modeled to decrease linearly and stop by 2030, as required by SDGs. Emission of 17 Metric Tonnes of Carbon-dioxide and 4.5 million kg Methane equivalent is reduced to zero at 2030. This model serves as an innovative approach to integrate SDG targets to local and regional energy planning process, and can be adopted for energy systems and policy planning for various regions in Nepal.


2021 ◽  
Vol 940 (1) ◽  
pp. 012058
Author(s):  
Irwansyah

Abstract Digital village is a development project with a digital platform. Digital transformation based on village potential is carried out to provide better services to the public. By using the capability maturity model (CMM), social contractual utilitarianism (SCU), and sustainable development goals (SDG), the research analyzes the content both quantitatively and qualitatively in public documents about digital villages in Indonesia. Public documents produced by the central, regional, media, and public governments stored on a website are extracted through the NVivo application and then categorized and analyzed with the categories of CMM, SCU, and SDG, tested for reliability via intercoder reliability and validity through trustworthiness. This study found (1) standard models related to government services to the public, (2) togetherness, and (3) the achievement of SDGs, especially the 8th goal, namely decent work, and economic growth. This study showed that the digital village enhances the government services to improve village economic growth and quality of education.


Resources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yash Chawla ◽  
Anna Kowalska-Pyzalska ◽  
Widayat Widayat

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world and is currently facing some challenges, such as pollution and a growing energy demand. One of the solutions to these problems is upgrading the electricity transmission and distribution system to avoid losses of energy, and encourage consumer engagement in energy saving as well as energy generation. The government of Indonesia has initiated projects for smart grids and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), but consumer awareness and willingness to accept these new technologies is still uncertain. This study focused on analyzing consumers’ knowledge and willingness to accept one of the key components in grid modernization, being smart meters (SM). An online questionnaire was used to record responses from 518 social media users from different parts of Indonesia. The analysis shows that, among social media users who are seen as early adopters of technology, there is certainly a lack of awareness about SM, but they are largely open towards the acceptance of SM. Based on the findings, we have also drawn recommendations for energy companies, which would help in raising consumer awareness, as well as acceptance of SM in Indonesia.


Author(s):  
Ghulamullah Maitlo ◽  
Sikander Ali Abbasi ◽  
Rashid Mustafa Korai ◽  
Abdul Ghaffar Memon

Pakistan has remained an energy deficient country for the last few decades. The supply of electricity decreased in 2002-2007 against the exponentially increasing demand in Pakistan. In the meantime, severe load shedding was started across Pakistan that negatively affected the economic growth of the country. More than 63% of the population in rural areas live without electricity. The government cut down electricity supply eight to twelve hours per day in terms of load shedding that adversely affects the living standards and economic growth of the nation. In the world, Pakistan stands on 133 regarding ranking in energy consumption. Energy usage per capita in Pakistan is 482 kilograms of oil equivalent per year (kgoe/a) which is very low when compared with the industrialized countries. Besides that Pakistan strongly adheres with non-renewable energy options to mollify its energy demand. The import of fossil fuels to meet energy demand adversely affects the economy of Pakistan. This review helps in the identification of indigenous available biomass resources and their conversion processes for power production to improve power generation, living standards and economy of the country. The application of indigenous biomass resources for electricity generation will reduce the pressure caused by increased demand for energy.


Author(s):  
A. Valente ◽  
D. Iribarren ◽  
J. Dufour ◽  
G. Spazzafumo

The suitability of hydrogen as an energy management solution in a run-of-river hydropower plant inCentral Italyis evaluated from a life-cycle perspective. Hydrogen production at off-peak hours via electrolysis is considered, as well as potential hydrogen storage in metal hydrides followed by hydrogen use at peak hours for power generation using fuel cell technology. Hydropower generation and hydrogen production are identified as the subsystems contributing most to the nine evaluated impact categories (e.g., global warming, abiotic depletion and cumulative energy demand). The renewable hydrogen produced shows a more favourable life-cycle environmental and energy performance than conventional hydrogen generated via steam methane reforming. Furthermore, when enlarging the system with hydrogen use for power generation, the renewable electricity product shows a better life-cycle profile than conventional electricity for the Italian electrical grid. Overall, under life-cycle aspects, hydrogen is found to be a suitable energy solution in hydropower plants both as a hydrogen product itself (e.g., for transportation) and as a feedstock for subsequent power generation at peak hours.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (21) ◽  
pp. 7356
Author(s):  
Marlene A. Perez-Villalpando ◽  
Kelly J. Gurubel Tun ◽  
Carlos A. Arellano-Muro ◽  
Fernando Fausto

Optimal operation of hydropower plants (HP) is a crucial task for the control of several variables involved in the power generation process, including hydraulic level and power generation rate. In general, there are three main problems that an optimal operation approach must address: (i) maintaining a hydraulic head level which satisfies the energy demand at a given time, (ii) regulating operation to match with certain established conditions, even in the presence of system’s parametric variations, and (iii) managing external disturbances at the system’s input. To address these problems, in this paper we propose an approach for optimal hydraulic level tracking based on an Inverse Optimal Controller (IOC), devised with the purpose of regulating power generation rates on a specific HP infrastructure. The Closed–Loop System (CLS) has been simulated using data collected from the HP through a whole year of operation as a tracking reference. Furthermore, to combat parametric variations, an accumulative action is incorporated into the control scheme. In addition, a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) based on Feature Engineering (FE) techniques has been implemented to aid the system in the prediction and management of external perturbations. Besides, a landslide is simulated, causing the system’s response to show a deviation in reference tracking, which is corrected through the control action. Afterward, the RNN is including of the aforementioned system, where the trajectories tracking deviation is not perceptible, at the hand of, a better response with respect to use a single scheme. The results show the robustness of the proposed control scheme despite climatic variations and landslides in the reservoir operation process. This proposed combined scheme shows good performance in presence of parametric variations and external perturbations.


Author(s):  
Hidayatul Fitri ◽  
Widyawan Widyawan ◽  
Indah Soesanti

Indonesia is a developing country and supports the program of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which consist of 17 goals. SDGs is not only the government’s duty, but a shared duty from any elements. Online media has a crucial role in implementing goals of Indonesia’s SDG. Information published in online news related to the SDGs is an important consideration for the government, society, and all elements. Categorizing news manually to find out news topics is very time-consuming and done by the ability of news editors. News presented by online media on the news site can be used as topic modeling, where hidden topics can be found in the news on online media. Topic modeling will classify data based on a particular topic and determine the relationship between text. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is one of the methods on topic modeling to find out the trend of topics of SDGs news. Based on the result of this research, the implementation of LDA is the right choice for finding topics in a document. The result of topic modeling with k = 17 obtained the highest coherence score of 0.5405 on topic 8. Topic 8 discussed news related to the eighth SDGs goals, namely decent work and economic growth. This categorization was based on words formed after the LDA process. Then, topic 5 discussed the news on the 17th SDGs goals, namely partnerships for the goals. Topic 6 discussed the news of the first SDGs, namely no poverty.


AKADEMIKA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-77
Author(s):  
Misbahul Khoir

In order for humans could reach the so-called falah (goodness), human behavior needs to be colored with the spirit and norms of Islamic economics reflected in its values. The principles and values of Islamic economics are considerably two inseparable things. The implementation of economic principles without being colored with values or values without being based on principles could keep people far away from their purpose, namely falah. The implementation of values not based on principles will tend to bring with it the normative economics, which would cause it trapped into injustice. While the implementation of values on the Islamic economic development is based on the five universal values, namely akidah (belief), 'adl (justice), nubuwwah (prophetic), khilafah (the government), and ma'ad (results). The five principles are used as the basis for building theories of Islamic economics. But strong and adequate theories not applied into a system will make the Islamic economics just as the study of science without giving positive impact on the economic life. Therefore, based on the five universal values, the three derivative principles should be built into the characteristics and the forerunner of the Islamic economic system. The Islamic economic system makes sure that there are no economic transactions that are contrary to the Shari'a. But business performance depends on the man behind the gun. For that reason, the economic actors within this framework could be held by non-Muslims. The Islamic economics could only be developed if the mindset and behavior of Muslims are already itqan (diligent) and ihsan (professional). It "may be" one of the secrets of the Prophet's statement, saying "Truly I was sent to perfect good character". Because good character could be an indicator of knowing good or bad behavior in determining both the success and the failure of business itself.


2018 ◽  
pp. 16-31
Author(s):  
Tatyana Denisova

For the first time in Russian African studies, the author examines the current state of agriculture, challenges and prospects for food security in Ghana, which belongs to the group of African countries that have made the most progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a collection of 17 global goals adopted by UN member states in 2015 with a view of achieving them by 2030. The SDGs include: ending poverty in all its forms everywhere (Goal 1); ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture (2); ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages (3), etc. These goals are considered fundamental because the achievement of a number of other SDGs – for example, ensuring quality education (4), achieving gender equality (5), ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns (12), etc. – largely depends on their implementation. Ghana was commended by the world community for the significant reduction in poverty, hunger and malnutrition between 2000 and 2014, i.e. for the relatively successful implementation of the first of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, 2000–2015) – the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. However, SDGs require more careful study and planning of implementation measures. In order to achieve the SDGs, the Government of Ghana has adopted a number of programs, plans and projects, the successful implementation of which often stumbles upon the lack of funding and lack of coordination between state bodies, private and public organizations, foreign partners – donors and creditors, etc., which are involved in the processes of socioeconomic development of Ghana. The author determines the reasons for the lack of food security in Ghana, gives an assessment of the state of the agricultural sector, the effective development of which is a prerequisite for the reduction of poverty and hunger, primarily due to the engagement of a significant share (45%) of the economically active population in this sector. The study shows that the limited growth in food production is largely due to the absence of domestic markets and necessary roads, means of transportation, irrigation and storage infrastructure, as well as insufficient investment in the agricultural sector, rather than to a shortage of fertile land or labor.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 266
Author(s):  
Md Rakibuzzaman ◽  
Sang-Ho Suh ◽  
Hyoung-Ho Kim ◽  
Youngtae Ryu ◽  
Kyung Yup Kim

Discharge water from fish farms is a clean, renewable, and abundant energy source that has been used to obtain renewable energy via small hydropower plants. Small hydropower plants may be installed at offshore fish farms where suitable water is obtained throughout the year. It is necessary to meet the challenges of developing small hydropower systems, including sustainability and turbine efficiency. The main objective of this study was to investigate the possibility of constructing a small hydropower plant and develop 100 kW class propeller-type turbines in a fish farm with a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG). The turbine was optimized using a computer simulation, and an experiment was conducted to obtain performance data. Simulation results were then validated with experimental results. Results revealed that streamlining the designed shape of the guide vane reduced the flow separation and improved the efficiency of the turbine. Optimizing the shape of the runner vane decreased the flow rate, reducing the water power and increasing the efficiency by about 5.57%. Also, results revealed that tubular or cross-flow turbines could be suitable for use in fish farm power plants, and the generator used should be waterproofed to avoid exposure to seawater.


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