By Ashish Mamgain, Deputy General Manager, THDC India Limited
The country’s hydropower development journey began in 1897 with the commissioning of the 130 kW Sidrapong hydroelectric plant in Darjeeling, regarded as India’s and Asia’s first hydropower station, to supply electricity to tea plantations. The project laid the foundation for one of the most reliable pillars of the Indian power system. Over the past few decades, hydropower has evolved into a dependable source of clean and flexible energy, contributing significantly to grid stability and peak demand management. Despite its strategic importance, the hydropower sector in India has consistently faced challenges related to land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement, environmental clearances and geological uncertainties. These issues have resulted in prolonged gestation periods, substantial cost overruns and delays in project execution. Only a limited number of projects, such as Chamera-II, the Indira Sagar project and Omkareshwar were completed broadly within their scheduled timelines.
According to the Central Electricity Authority, around 29 hydroelectric projects above 25 MW, aggregating approximately 13,673 MW, are currently at various stages of implementation across the country. Further, India’s hydro capacity addition programme for 2026-27 targets 6,730 MW of capacity addition, including the recently commissioned 250 MW unit of the Tehri pumped storage project (PSP). At present, India’s installed hydropower capacity, including PSPs, stands at over 51 GW, accounting for nearly 10 per cent of the country’s total installed generation capacity.
However, a substantial portion of the existing hydropower fleet connected to the Indian grid is ageing and gradually becoming technologically outdated, particularly in view of evolving cybersecurity requirements and modern grid operation standards. In this scenario, renovation and modernisation, combined with comprehensive automation, has emerged as a strategic necessity rather than merely a technological upgrade. Modern hydropower stations are required to operate within a highly dynamic power system dominated by solar and wind. Unlike the conventional baseload and peaking power operation of earlier decades, hydro stations today must support rapid ramping, frequency regulation, voltage fluctuations, spinning reserves, black-start capability (wherever possible) and ancillary services for maintaining grid stability. Consequently, automation systems have become central to ensuring the future readiness of hydropower plants.
The modernisation process involves the deployment of advanced supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, online condition monitoring platforms, predictive maintenance tools, high speed communication networks, digital governors, advanced unit control systems, numerical protection relays and automatic energy management systems. These automation interventions are essential for improving operational reliability, preventing major equipment failures, meeting plant availability factor requirements and ensuring compliance with evolving regulatory standards. The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), through the Indian Electricity Grid Code Regulations, 2023, has mandated several automation-linked requirements for generating stations. These include the integration of generating units with automatic generation control, implementation of turbine governor-based primary frequency response, and deployment of automatic voltage regulators, power system stabilisers and advanced telemetry and communication systems linked to load despatch centres. In addition, interface energy meters with automatic meter reading facilities are now critical for modern grid energy accounting.
The regulatory push towards automation has also gained financial significance. As per the CERC Tariff Regulations, 2024, return on equity for new projects may be reduced if generating stations are declared under commercial operation without commissioning free governor mode operation, telemetry, communication or protection systems. This reflects the increasing recognition of automation infrastructure as an essential component of modern power generation assets including hydro.
The Dam Safety Act, 2021 has further expanded the scope of automation by mandating emergency flood warning systems and real-time hydrological and meteorological data exchange mechanisms for reservoir operations. Such requirements necessitate sophisticated digital monitoring, forecasting and communication systems for ensuring downstream safety and efficient reservoir management.
While the case for automation is compelling, the sector faces significant implementation challenges. One of the most critical concerns is the mismatch between long project execution timelines and the rapid pace of technological evolution. In most hydropower projects, design and engineering activities are finalised during the initial phase of contract execution. However, due to delays extending over several years, many automation technologies envisaged during the design stage, particularly SCADA systems, cybersecurity infrastructure, communication hardware and digital controllers, often become obsolete before actual commissioning. This results in repeated redesign, reprocurement, software migration and system upgradation during execution stages, leading to substantial cost escalation and contractual complexities. Cybersecurity compliance further complicates the process as evolving threat landscapes require periodic upgrades of firewalls, network architecture, access control systems and secure communication protocols throughout the project life cycle.
Another emerging trend in the global hydropower sector is unmanned and remotely operated hydro stations. Several developed countries have already set up centralised remote operation centres supported by AI-enabled predictive maintenance platforms, digital twins, advanced analytics and highly secure communication systems. Such technologies significantly reduce operational downtime, optimise maintenance schedules and enhance overall plant efficiency. However, in the Indian context, the large-scale implementation of unmanned hydro operation presents multiple challenges.
Most existing hydropower stations were originally designed for conventional manual or semiautomatic operation. Retrofitting these plants with advanced automation architecture would require extensive shutdown periods, major capital investment and careful integration between modern digital systems and conventional hydraulic equipment.
Further, hydropower generating units possess unique dynamic characteristics influenced by hydraulic transients, water head variations, surge phenomena and complex electromechanical interactions. Achieving reliable synchronisation between automated control systems and conventional hydromechanical responses therefore remains a significant engineering challenge. The social dimension of automation also deserves careful consideration. The increasing adoption of remote and unmanned operation may gradually reduce the requirement for skilled operators and supporting technical manpower at project sites. In a country where hydropower projects often serve as economic anchors in remote mountainous regions, any reduction in local employment opportunities could have wider socio-economic implications. Nevertheless, the transition towards automation appears inevitable. In a rapidly evolving renewable energy ecosystem dominated by intermittent solar and wind generation, hydropower remains uniquely positioned to provide operational flexibility, storage support, grid balancing and fast-response ancillary services. To effectively perform this role, Indian hydropower stations must evolve into digitally enabled, cybersecure and intelligent generating assets capable of dynamically responding to grid requirements.
In this direction, key priorities include the development of an indigenous SCADA and cybersecurity ecosystem, standardisation of hydropower automation architecture, incorporation of life cycle technology upgrade provisions in contracts and focused capacity building along with re-skilling of manpower for digitalised and automated plant operations. The future of India’s hydropower sector will therefore depend not only on capacity addition, but also on how effectively existing and upcoming projects embrace automation, digitalisation and cybersecurity resilience. The transformation may involve significant investment and operational challenges, but it also presents a historic opportunity to redefine hydropower as a technologically advanced backbone of India’s clean energy transition.
