In news–Recently, NHPC’s 510 MW Teesta-V Power Station located in Sikkim has been conferred with the prestigious Blue Planet Prize by International Hydropower Association (IHA).
Award to Teesta-V Power Station
- Teesta-V Power Station (3×170 MW) is a run of the river scheme with diurnal storage to harness the hydro power potential of river Teesta for peaking during the lean season.
- The power station has been built, owned and operated by NHPC.
- The project comprises 88.6 m high Concrete Gravity Dam (located 2 Kms downstream of its confluence with Dikchunala) with three penstocks of length 321 m and 17.2 Km long Head Race Tunnel housed on left bank.
- The award for Teesta-V Power Station was announced yesterday during the World Hydropower Congress, 2021.
- The award had been conferred to Teesta-V Power Station based on its sustainability assessment undertaken by a team of accredited lead assessors of IHA in 2019 using the Operation Stage tool of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) of IHA.
- The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) is the leading international tool for measuring the sustainability of hydropower projects.
- It offers a way to benchmark the performance of a hydropower project against a comprehensive range of environmental, social, technical and governance criteria.
- Assessments are based on objective evidence and the results are presented in a standardized report.
Blue Planet Prize
- The IHA Blue Planet Prize is awarded to hydropower projects that demonstrate excellence in sustainable development.
- In 1992, the year of the Earth Summit, the Asahi Glass Foundation established the Blue Planet Prize.
- It is an award presented to individuals or organizations from around the world in recognition of outstanding achievements in scientific research and its application that have helped provide solutions to global environmental problems.
- The Prize is offered in the hope of encouraging efforts to bring about the healing of the Earth’s fragile environment.
- The award’s name was inspired by the remark “the Earth is blue,” uttered by the first human in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, upon viewing our planet.
- International Hydropower Association (IHA) is a London based non-profit membership association operating in 120 countries.
Teesta river
- Teesta River is a 414 km long river that rises in the Pauhunri Mountain of eastern Himalayas.
- It flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Bangladesh and enters the Bay of Bengal.
- It joins the River Brahmaputra at Fulchhari in Bangladesh.
- The 315 km portion of the river lies in India and rest in Bangladesh.
- Teesta is the largest river of Sikkim and second largest river of West Bengal after Ganges.
NHPC Limited
- It is an Indian government hydropower board under the ownership of the Ministry of Power.
- It was incorporated in 1975 with an objective to plan, promote and organise an integrated and efficient development of hydroelectric power in all aspects.
- Later on NHPC expanded its objects to include other sources of energy like Solar, Geothermal, Tidal, Wind etc.
- At present, NHPC is a Mini Ratna Category-I Enterprise of the Govt. of India.
- As on date NHPC Limited has become the largest organisation for hydropower development in India
Source: PIB
