Power Surge

Twenty years ago, we wrote about how a malfunction in a turbine in a power plant led to power cuts across the country. The installed power then was only 610MW and the peak demand 560MW, which caused a shortfall of a mere 53W that led to loadshedding.

Today, Nepal’s installed capacity is 3,157MW, peak demand is near 2,000MW, and electrification across the country is near 100%. We now have surplus power, and wasting a lot of it by spilling. It got much worse before it got better: at one point in 2015-16 Nepalis endured power cuts up to 20 hours a day. 

Excerpts of the report published on issue #229 7 – 13 January 2005:

This week's two-hour power cuts caused by the malfunction in one of the three Kali Gandaki turbines proves just how precarious the electricity supply situation in Nepal has become. An internal assessment of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) forecasts power cuts from later this year up to 2008. The reason: surging demand and delays in new power plants like Middle Marsyangdi.

This week's power cuts are temporary and will be lifted once the turbine is fixed but all signs point to long and chronic load shedding in the coming years. This week, NEA has distributed power cuts so no one area suffers more than two hours a week. "We cut power first along the border towns because we can switch them to the Indian grid," says NEA's load dispatch centre chief Shyam Sundar Shrestha.

But by this time next year power cuts will be nationwide and routine because shortfalls in the supply will be an unprecedented 53 megawatts. At the rate demand is rising, peak load will touch 560 megawatts this year, while the installed capacity is merely 610 megawatts.

For archived material of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: nepalitimes.com