On May 20, 2025, the Technical Specification for Small Hydropower and Wind-PV Complementary Control System (Chinese and English versions) issued by the International Network on Small Hydro Power (INSHP) is released at the 28th International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) Congress & 93rd Annual Meeting held in Chengdu, China. This is the world's first bilingual version of the small hydropower multi energy complementary standard, which can provide strong technical support for building new power systems and fill the industry gap.
Hydropower and energy experts from international organizations including the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), as well as countries of Armenia, Poland, India, Nepal, Egypt, Nigeria, Colombia, Mexico have been organized by INSHP for consultation, actively promoting open cooperation on development of the standard, laying foundation for accelerated transformation of the standard into international standard, which is an effective exploration and practice for global adoption of the standard.
Based on the breakthrough technology of the China National Key R&D Program, this standard is jointly compiled by 8 Chinese units including the State Grid Sichuan Electric Power Research Institute and Nanjing NARI Water Resources and Hydropower Technology Co., Ltd. Next, INSHP is to fully leverage the platform advantages as an international organization and work together with participating units to promote the adoption of the standard for global small hydropower industry and commercial activities.
Among the key tasks identified in the Action Plan for Peak Carbon Emissions by 2030 issued by the State Council of the People's Republic of China, "promoting the green development of small hydropower" is an important part of the energy green and low-carbon transformation action. By standardizing the development of distributed energy sources such as small hydropower, wind power, and photovoltaics through technical standard, a flexible operating system with multi energy synergy and complementarity can be formed, which can significantly increase the proportion of renewable energy in the power grid, accelerate the transformation of energy mix towards clean and low-carbon, promote the construction of new power systems, and facilitate to achieve the "dual carbon" goal.
