• NHPC’s 510 MW Teesta-V hydropower project located in Sikkim has been conferred with the prestigious Blue Planet Prize by International Hydropower Association (IHA).

• The prize was awarded on September 23, 2021, the penultimate day of the biennial World Hydropower Congress.

• Teesta-V is part of a cascade of hydropower projects along the Teesta River designed to supply power to Sikkim’s Energy & Power Department and other state-owned distribution companies.

• The award has been conferred 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.

• During its assessment, Teesta-V project, located on the Teesta River in Sikkim, met or exceeded international good practice across all 20 performance criteria using the Hydropower Sustainability Tools.

• The independent assessment report highlights how NHPC Limited has designed and implemented processes to manage its impacts on local communities and the environment. In doing so, the project has provided significant positive benefits, including providing low-cost electricity and employment to the region.

IHA Blue Planet Prize

• The IHA Blue Planet Prize is awarded to hydropower projects that demonstrate excellence in sustainable development.

• The prize is awarded on the basis of an assessment using the Hydropower Sustainability Tools — internationally recognised tools to measure the sustainability of hydropower projects across a range of social, environmental, technical and economic aspects. The tools were developed through cross-sector consensus and are governed by a multi-stakeholder body that includes governments, environmental and social NGOs, commercial and development banks, and industry.

• The 2019 IHA Blue Planet Prize was awarded to the Reventazón Hydropower Plant in Costa Rica, built and operated by the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE). Reventazón is the largest hydropower project in Central America with 305.5 megawatts of installed capacity.

Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol

• The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) offers a way to assess the performance of a hydropower project across more than 20 sustainability topics.

• The breadth of the topics gives clients a clearer understanding of the overall sustainability of a project, including environmental, social, technical and economic aspects. The HSAP also includes ‘cross-cutting issues’ such as gender issues and human rights, which feature in multiple topics. 

• Assessments are based on objective evidence and the results are presented in a standardised way, making it easy to see how existing facilities are performing and how well new projects are being developed.

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