Sustainability of Micro Hydropower Generation in a Traditional Community of Indonesia

Abstract

Over 3 years, we undertook a micro hydropower (MHP) project in the Ciptagelar village, West Java, to improve the understanding and implementation of sustainable operations and management of MHP generation in remote rural areas, where the primary industry is farming and thus monetary incomes are low. First, we describe in this paper the history of setting up the research agenda to be tackled with the cooperation of governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders. Second, we report the current status of MHP plants and the related issues obtained through fieldwork and model simulations, in the context of culture, traditions, and society in the village. Finally, we propose guidelines to solve the issues and present the lessons learned and things scientists should pay attention to when proceeding with transdis-ciplinary research projects in remote rural areas. Through fieldwork and model simulations, we revealed issues related to budgeting and techniques for maintaining and operating MHP plants. We found that the village had difficulty in securing funds for repairing broken intake weirs, though it had funds to cover the general maintenance of the MHP plants. We also found that the intake weirs were vulnerable to large floods and that no accomplished technicians were available to operate MHP plants in the village properly. To solve these issues, we need to find ways to reinforce the intake weirs using local materials and increase monetary incomes by creating new industries based on the MHP generation while considering the cultural and traditional backgrounds of the remote rural areas.