Nepal’s electricity production becomes 2,689.83 MW; capacity to cross 2,800 MW by this FY end

KATHMANDU: The private sector power producers contributed an additional 552 MW of electricity to the national grid during the past one year.

The records of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) show that a total of 552.119 MW of electricity was supplied by 32 private sector-run power projects in one year between mid-April 2022 and mid-March 2023. This includes both the electricity produced from hydropower and solar plants.

Of the electricity produced by the private sector, 523.319 MW was produced from 28 hydropower plants while 28.8 MW of electricity was produced by four solar plants.

According to the NEA, the 86 MW Solu-Dudhkoshi was the largest private sector investment project that came online during the period.

Likewise, nine projects with production of 157.470 MW are at the stage of test production. These include three solar plants with capacity of 18.8 MW and six hydropower plants of 138.67 MW.

With an added amount, Nepal’s total installed capacity of electricity has reached 2,532.36 MW. Out of this, the NEA contributes 661.34 MW and its subsidiaries contribute 478.10 MW, while the production of private companies stands at 1,392.92 MW. Including the test production of power plants, the country’s total electricity production stands at 2,689.83 MW.

The NEA has projected that an additional 124.698 MW of electricity will be added in the national system by mid-July in the current fiscal year. Given the production is realized, there will be a total installed capacity of 2,814.525 MW in the country.

According to the estimation, 6.42 MW Upper Mailung A, 14.3 MW Upper Malun, 14.8 MW Upper Sanjen, 3.2 MW Gelung and 4.8 MW Khorunga Khola hydropower projects will come online by the end of the current fiscal year. Similarly, 0.975 MW Idi Khola, 10.3 MW Down Piluwa, 33.4 MW Likhu-2, 4.7 MW Upper Chirkhuwa and 5.8 MW Upper Phawa projects are also set to start their production during the period.

Likewise, 8 MW Duhabi Solar, 10 MW Baki Block Solar-1 and 8 MW Bhrikuti PV solar projects have been estimated to give their production by this fiscal year end.