Greenko Group is based in UK, but operates a considerable number of small/medium hydro energy projects in India. They own and operate renewable energy projects, especially micro hydro power plants. They are one of the largest operators of small hydro projects in India, but also take up projects in the wind, natural-gas/biomass sectors.
Currently Greenko operates 151.3 MW of hydro energy projects and a total of 229.6 MW renewable energy projects, in India. One of their aims is to achieve 1 GW operational capacity by 2015.
Greenko generally selects river projects between 20-100 MW within a cluster and keep adding more projects under their belt. They are involved in sustainable community beneficial activities in the educational, health-care, safety, rural development and environmental sectors, mainly in rural areas.
A list of hydro energy projects undertaken by Greenko can be found here.
On December 04, 2012, Greenko announced through a press release that they have acquired the Sumez 14 MW run-of-river hydro power project in Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh. With this acquisition, Greenko now has 11 run-of-river hydro projects (totaling 71 MW) in Himachal Pradesh, alone. A number of Greenko hydro power projects across India are under active development.
Greenko says that while they prefer organic growth (building hydro power projects from scratch), they will also consider buying hydro assets in places where it makes strong investment sense.
In locations where perennial running streams/rivers are available, it's a good idea to tap the energy of the running water and convert them into electricity. Micro hydro power plants are especially useful in hilly regions, remote forest areas, along rivers, etc. where running water source is available, but getting connected to the grid maybe next to impossible. Small micro hydro power projects do not harm the environment/river species, if constructed carefully.
Website: http://www.greenkogroup.com/
