The small hydropower market projected to reach US$3 billion

The global small hydropower market is projected to reach US$3 billion by 2024 from an estimated market size of US$2.6 billion in 2019, at a CAGR of 2.4% during the forecast period.

The 1–10 MW segment is expected to dominate the small hydropower market in 2019 owing to small hydropower installations in various countries across the globe. This higher share of 1–10 MW plants can be attributed to small-scale decentralised projects for rural electrification, especially in Asia Pacific, with countries such as China, Vietnam, and India accounting for a large amount of small hydropower installations in this region.

Due to the fact that civil works account for a significant share of project costs in all small hydropower projects, the civil works segment is estimated to hold the largest share of the small hydropower market, by component, from 2019 to 2024.

Small hydropower plants generally do not require the construction of dams, reservoirs, or any kind of storage structure as most plants are runoff run-of-river plants. However, to properly guide the water on to turbines and to increase the water head, civil structures such as weirs are constructed.

These simple civil structures are cheaper than those in large hydropower plants, but they constitute a large share of the total project cost in small hydropower plants.

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