The 19 micro hydro plants will have a capacity of 1.3 MegaWatts and they will be connected to the grid through a net metering mechanism. Net metering involves delivering excess power to the grid which is off-set against power drawn from the grid or carried forward as a credit.
NDB said the micro hydro plants are located Badulla. Kandy, Kegalle, Matale, Nuwara Eliya and Ratnapura districts.
The credit line will finance up to 100 percent of the cost of the plants. The loans will have a 5-year repayment period and one year grace period.
The Estate Micro Hydro Rehabilitation and Repowering Project (EMRRP) is part of ADB's Sustainable Power Sector Support Project, the NDB said.The estate micro hydro project involve sites developed in the mid 1990s but were no longer operating.
NDB said the hydro plants ranging from 0.25 MW to 10MW totalling 253MW had been built with ADB credit.
About 300 such off-grid community networks, typically between 10 to 50 kW have also been built lighting up about 7,500 households.
