Upper Balephi ‘A’ supplying 36 MW of electricity to national grid from Today

KATHMANDU, Upper Balephi ‘A’ Hydropower Project is supplying its 36 MW of electricity to the national grid from Today.

Upper Balephi ‘A’, located in Sindhupalchok, is the largest hydropower project in the district, which is constructed by the private sector. Umesh Kumar Kasaju, chairman of Balephi Hydropower Company, said they are now at the stage of final testing of the infrastructures including transmission line and transformers. “We have now moved forward to supply our product in the national grid after getting success in filling up water in the main structures and conducting a test production,” Kasaju told Urja Khabar.

According to him, they will be supplying test products for next two weeks to the Nepal Electricity Authority from Monday. “After completing a two week long trial, we will go into the commercial production,” said Kasaju.

Electricity produced by Upper Balephi ‘A’ will be sent to the substation at Lamosanghu, which is at 22 km distance from the power house, which has three production units of 12 MW capacity.

The project had planned to supply its production to the national grid a few months ago. But it was postponed due to the flood and landslide in the district last rainy season.   

Similarly, the disruption in movement of workers and supply of construction materials due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic had affected the projected timeline to start its production. Earlier, it had set a deadline of mid-June, 2021 to start its production.

The project has been constructed at around Rs 7 billion. Of the amount, 30 percent is debt while 70 percent is equity. A consortium of five banks has funded the project.