Mae Jo micro-hydro meeting

We're excited about working with Mae Jo village to make Thailand's first community-owned grid-connected micro-hydropower project. In this photo Chom is leading a community meeting to discuss the project.

The planned project will use water from an existing irrigation dam and pipe. The water drops 15 meters, with a flow measured at 290 liters/second. With a modest investment, the existing water infrastructure can be used to generate about 25 kW of electricity. The system can be built and operated in a way that will have zero impact on water quality, zero change in water flow regime, and thus zero negative impact to farmers. The micro-hydro turbine will make useful electricity from the energy in the water that is currently wasted churning against the concrete structure inside the valve-house. Any profits from the community-owned project will go to community development and watershed management.