community micro-hydropower management
research affiliate, bhutan power corporation | beagle II award (stanford anthropology)
lhuentse, sengor, & chendebji, bhutan
For my undergraduate senior project, I assessed strategies for community management of micro-hydropower in rural Bhutan. I chose three micro-hydropower systems with varying levels of community participation: one village with complete community management, one with joint community-Bhutan Power Corporation (BPC) management, and one with only BPC management and no community involvement. While I found that communities were more satisfied with their electricity service when they played a role in decision-making, the greatest factor in service reliability was proximity to roads. No matter who was managing or to what degree, repairs to both the generation equipment and the distribution lines could be done much more quickly when plants were built close to the road.
My research involved:
- Monitoring performance data from micro-hydropower plants
- Interviews with technicians, plant managers, and community leaders
- Survey of recently-electrified households
- Focus group discussions with households
- Observation of electricity usage in households and cottage industries
