"There are social and environmental concerns about the manner in which small hydropower has been implemented in India.
Its banks are disfigured by small hydropower stations, some half built, and by diversion tunnels, blasted out of solid rock, that leave miles of the riverbed dry.
State researchers estimate that as much as 48percentt of Vermont's power could one day come from local renewables, including small hydropower projects.
"This is holding down the development of small hydropower," said Mr. Formel, 51, as he stared in frustration at the creek.
The roughly 300-mile (480-km) river, which from source to mouth drops about 500 feet (150 metres), has small hydropower developments.
A proposed small hydropower project in west London has received a further setback, as court judges allowed an appeal by a club owned by Shell against the granting of planning permission to the site.
But while employment rose in solar PV and wind, they were offset by losses in the solar thermal and small hydropower sectors, leading to an overall job decline of 2% in the country.
The International Energy Agency recommends that more than 60% of the funds required to bring about universal access to electricity be invested in distributed renewable energy projects such as wind, solar and small hydropower plants.
According to American Rivers, an advocacy group and a major player in the Edwards Dam campaign, about 430 outdated dams (some of them small hydropower dams like Edwards) have been removed with both public and private funding.
Aspen/Snowmass, which was the first major resort to use wind energy to power its chairlifts, installed a small hydropower turbine two years ago that turns the mountain's spring runoff into electricity.
Small hydropower covers plants with generating capacities of 10 MW or less.
