'Electricity production declines by around 20 percent due to no rainfall this winter'

Kathmandu; Electricity production in the country has dropped significantly due to a drastic fall in water levels in rivers, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) says.

According to the NEA, the situation is a result of having no rainfall for a long time period during this winter. NEA Managing Director Kulman Ghising said receding water levels in rivers has resulted in the heavy decline in domestic production. He said NEA’s electricity production has gone down to one-third of the production on a normal day during winter.

According to Ghising, the state-owned power utility produced 600 MW of electricity per day from its operated power plants in winter last year, which has come down to just 200 MW now. “Overall, production has declined by 20 percent,” said Ghising, who also claimed that electricity production in the dry season this year is perhaps almost one of the lowest in the past one decade.

Lack of rainfall has also taken down the actual production of the 456 MW Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project. Compared to 110 MW of production during this season last year, electricity generation at present is only 75 MW.

Nepal’s most of the installed hydropower projects are run-of-river type. Although the country’s total electricity production capacity has reached 2,200 MW, production now stands at only around 35 percent of installed capacity.

On Thursday evening, the NEA recorded peak demand of 1,634 MW. The NEA has started rationing power distribution, citing high demand amid scanty production. Ghising said the authority has cut down supply to industries during peak demand times in morning and evening.

With the soaring gap between demand and supply, the import of electricity from India has also increased by a notable amount. According to the NEA, around 10 million units of electricity out of the daily demand of 30 million units is being imported from India on a daily basis.