Micro hydropower plants (MHPP) are widely set up in off-grid sites to provide electrical power. The power quality in such site is a challenge and requires an accurate model for MHPP. The model has to be available for large operating points. Moreover, the model must take into consideration the non-linear character of the system. For these reasons, the present paper proposes a Takagi-Sugeno (T.S) fuzzy model approach for modeling the overall behavior of a three-phase MHPP prototype. This modeling is based on the identification of simple approximations by first and second order systems around several operating points of the system. These operating points depend on different water flows and electric load variations. The developed T.S fuzzy models were experimentally validated taking into consideration various working conditions. The results show that the approximation by the second order system has better accordance with the real system responses. Therefore, this approximation devotes more opportunities to synthesize suitable and robust controllers for MHPP compared to the first order one. (C) 2017 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.