Should the eligibility of hydropower projects for carbon trade be restricted to 10 MW?
No, the eligibility of hydropower projects eligible for carbon trade should not be restricted to 10 MW. There are many different ways to classify hydro projects – depending on purpose of classification – and it is clear that there is no single widely accepted definition of small hydro. The 10 MW criterion is not widely used for reporting on the performance of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). For example, the CDM’s Executive Board has developed simplified procedures for small scale projects, which include renewable energy projects of less than 15 MW, for the implicit purpose of encouraging their implementation. In addition, various countries use different ways to classify small hydro – India up to 25 MW; Brazil and USA up to 30 MW; China up to 50 MW. Thus, one reason to define small hydro is presumably to link generation capacity with potential impact to the environment, in essence stating that small hydro projects have the least impact. The Bank’s view is that the relationship be
