High tech firms are power hungry, and the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/those-who-stay">climate crisis</a> is driving them to seek <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-can-lead-in-zero-carbon">renewable sources of energy</a>. Nepal’s surplus electricity generation capacity coincides with this surge in global demand to power generative AI data centres. Data centres have become major drivers of electricity demand globally in the last two years, but the lack of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-electric-transport-future-is-here">clean energy</a> remains a major hurdle to expansion. Along with coverage area and number of racks, a key parameter to measure use of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/tech-and-transition-in-nepal">information technology </a>in each country is the amount of power they use1 for data centres. For example, the US currently uses 50MW of data centres per million people compared to just 1MW in India. In Nepal, investment in data centres have just begun. About 1.5% of global electricity is currently going to power data centres and data transmission. Improvements in IT hardware, efficient cooling methods, and gains from the shift to efficient cloud and hyperscale data centres have allowed growth in energy demand to remain small even as data centre services have grown significantly since 2010. After 2022 this picture has begun to break down due to the exponential growth in power requirements for <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-in-the-decade-of-ai">AI </a>which far exceeds accompanying gains in energy efficiency.&nbsp; The growth of AI applications was made possible by breakthroughs in Deep Neural Network models and hardware to run them, enabling image recognition and generation, natural language processing and many other previously<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/it-is-all-about-it-in-nepal,3887"> ‘high-compute applications’</a> which required a lot of computational power. These advances laid the groundwork for large language models such as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/chatgpt-news-about-nepal">GPT</a>-4o (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Gemini (Google), Llama-3 (Meta/Facebook), Grok (xAI) among others. The growth of large language models and generative AI has changed the role of data centres from managing content, data storage and data processing to training large AI models and running AI inference to serve user applications from those models. But training <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-bhasa-on-google-translate">AI models</a> is compute-intensive, and requires high-powered hardware. Similarly, AI inference, which involves using trained models to make predictions based on new data, also demands significant energy due to the large and increasing number of user applications served by AI models. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, growth in investment into generative AI is expected to push data-centre electricity use by 4-10 times from current levels by 2030. Companies such as Google and Microsoft are already consuming as much electricity as The Netherlands. Many of the largest companies have also made ‘net-zero’ commitments, to generate no net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, which they are struggling to uphold due to this unexpected increase in energy demand to power data centres.Big tech is therefore sourcing power from all the clean energy sources they can find: wind, solar and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/missing-pieces-of-the-hydropower-jigsaw">hydropower</a>. They have even invested in nuclear power plants to power AI data centres. As demand rises, companies will be looking for new geographies with abundant clean energy. Could this new reality present an opportunity for Nepal to market its surplus clean energy from hydropower and solar? The country could promote itself as a destination for data centres, as Bhutan is doing with its Gelephu Mindfulness City. Nepal’s data infrastructure, even including NEA and Ncell Axiata data centres, is not well developed. &nbsp;The recently announced partnership between the Chaudhary Group’s BLC Holdings, and India’s Yotta Data Services to build Nepal’s first supercloud 4MW data centre in Ramkot could pave the way for private sector investment into data centres in Nepal.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250120140144_dae5f9c304943d4efb156a9930b0ca1894b2f6b915abeb6c30d510e0f246e4a5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250120140144_dae5f9c304943d4efb156a9930b0ca1894b2f6b915abeb6c30d510e0f246e4a5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1125" loading="lazy" alt="NEA"> <figcaption>Distribution System Control and Data Centre of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) in Siuchatar in Kathmandu. Photo: SONIA AWALE</figcaption> </figure>  Yotta already runs some of the largest hyperscale data centres in Mumbai and Delhi, and this investment could allow the company to be the provider of digital services in the Subcontinent’s high growth IT sector. To catch up with per capita IT services at the level of India, Nepal would need seven more Ramkot-sized data centres using about 30MW of power. With its readily available clean energy and proximity to large population centres in Northern India and Bangladesh, Nepal could in theory provide the compute infrastructure necessary to power the future AI training and inference services for local applications and markets.&nbsp; To provide IT services at the level that the US population currently consumes, Nepal would need 1,500MW of power just to power data centres for its own needs. While this is unlikely to happen anytime soon, Nepal could opportunistically provide data centre services for the upcoming AI needs of some of the 500 million people living in the Ganges basin. India is already a regional powerhouse in data centres and has about 1,600MW of capacity, and generative AI is estimated to push computational requirements with power needs expected to grow between 25-30% each year through to 2030. With the right investment climate, and the necessary investment into fibre optic infrastructure and IT parks, Nepal could leverage its plentiful power supply advantage to offer locations for a portion of this investment.&nbsp; This would provide a much needed boost to Nepal’s ongoing efforts to establish itself as a technology hub and provide jobs to the 15,000 IT professionals that are being trained in the country each year. Data centres are one part of a larger technology ecosystem. AI model training and maintenance require skilled expertise in every industry from finance, to train fraud detection models, to healthcare, to label X-ray and MRI images and test results and diagnostic data to build intelligent medical tools, and to the legal sector, to supervise generated contract documents. NTC’s recently installed XGPON network standard that can deliver up to 10 Gbps downstream speed and 2.5 Gbps upstream does provide the basic level of connectivity needed for AI applications, but it is only available in Kathmandu and needs to be expanded to other urban centres. Nepal’s investment climate for private companies remains far from ideal, and government regulations need to be relaxed to allow global companies and non-resident Nepalis to bring in investment to take full advantage of this new <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/business/digital-connectivity">digital infrastructure</a>. Amrit R Pant contributed with AI expertise while writing the article. Bikash Pandey is Director of Clean Energy and Circular Economy at Winrock International. People Power is his regular column in Nepali Times on global energy issues relevant to Nepal.

Bikash Pandey

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People Power

Nepal as an AI power bank

As a micro-hydro engineer working in rural Nepal in the mid-1980’s, I struggled to find money to build power plants that could meet the energy demand along the Everest and Annapurna trekking trails. Communities in Lukla, Namche, Jomsom and Ghandruk needed energy to meet basic needs of trekkers, and provide value-added services for additional income. Tourists were prepared to pay for hot showers, cold beer, clean beds, and a varied menu. But resource limitation meant there were fewer and smaller power plants. The national electricity grid was then limited to urban areas and the country’s electrification rate was low and stayed below 20%. The Nepal Electricity Corporation (NEC) , the predecessor of NEA, had constructed a dozen small hydro projects for remote districts with no immediate prospects of being supplied by the grid.&nbsp; Some of these were in tourist areas but were woefully inadequate to supply more than domestic lighting load. The 240 kW Chokhopani small hydropower project, commissioned by NEC in 1984, to supply the Thak Khola region of Mustang, was overloaded within a couple of years of its construction after tourist lodges in Tukuche, Marpha, and Jomsom began plugging in electric space heaters and hot plates. Following the 1984 delicensing of generation from power plants of less than 100kW capacity, Nepal saw a dramatic surge in interest from rural communities to invest in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/micro-hydro-in-nepal-affected-by-the-spread-of-national-grid" target="_blank">micro-hydropower</a>. While smaller systems could meet the needs for power for home lighting and tv sets in non-tourist areas, communities along tourist trails wanted larger power plants to cook and heat with electricity and run refrigerators. The <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/municipalities-want-to-manage-annapurna" target="_blank">Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP)</a> provided a grant to cover 70% of the cost of the 50kW Ghandruk project. Completed in 1990, it was designed to supply 250 households and 20 hotels. However, to make sure there was sufficient power to connect the whole community, each hotel was limited to a subscription of one kW of power — not enough to meet cooking needs.&nbsp; The hotels were encouraged to turn on immersion water heaters at night to speed up cooking in the morning. Recognising that micro-hydropower projects could only partially supply their energy needs, ACAP also helped hotels install solar hot water systems for showers and import LPG for cooking. The 600kW Thame project in the Everest region was completed in 1995 with a grant from the Austrian government to supply 629 homes and tourism businesses of Namche Bazar, Khumjung and Thame. For the first time in Nepal, it was able to demonstrate how much value an abundant supply of electricity could add to mountain tourism. Electricity reduced pressure on scarce, high altitude biomass and provided an alternative for families that were caught between strict rules prohibiting firewood collection from the Sagarmatha National Park, and the need of increasing numbers of trekkers, guides, and porters.&nbsp; Electricity was used in place of firewood not only by hotels and cafes, but also in the kitchens of 60% of the households. Electricity from the Thame power plant allows Namche Bazar today to meet the fuel needs of more than 40,000 trekkers a year, double the annual visitors when it was built 30 years ago. The electricity supply also opened up new livelihood opportunities. Stores selling handicrafts and climbing gear, tea shops, pubs, restaurants, lodges, laundromats, cyber cafes, jacuzzi, water treatment and bottling plants, and three electricity-powered bakeries, and pizzeries all came up.&nbsp; Another early benefit from Namche’s electrification was the improvement in water supply because it could now be pumped up from a spring to a reservoir with slow-sand filtration at the top of the village. Piped water supply from the reservoir and a sewage system, also managed by the power utility, Khumbu Bijuli Company, allowed hotels to offer rooms with attached bathrooms with hot showers and charge significantly higher for rooms.&nbsp; Other electricity-enabled infrastructure include cell phone towers, of which Namche has two, and the potential for cable cars to take visitors to viewpoints and ropeways to transport goods.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241124101136_12b9599800b353fbc6fbefe1a8b69f2d83bb09c0b19e47d664edb9de3f9ea6d3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241124101136_12b9599800b353fbc6fbefe1a8b69f2d83bb09c0b19e47d664edb9de3f9ea6d3" data-rendition-name="original" width="2039" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal can level up tourism with electricity NT"> </figure>  Since the earliest days of trekking tourism, the environmental carrying capacity of the local ecosystem has been limited by the availability of energy. Without access to commercial energy from the outside, the number of trekkers, and their accompanying support teams, that any region can host depends on the rate at which trees can regenerate there.&nbsp; High altitude areas like the Khumbu face a natural limit based on the slow rates at which trees can grow. Arid trans-Himalayan regions like Upper Mustang and Dolpo can sustainably harvest even less biomass. The government continues to restrict tourism areas in the trans-Himalaya, with fragile ecosystems, requiring foreign visitors to pay for permits.&nbsp; Trekking groups are required to carry their own fuel to avoid strain on the local ecosystem. In Upper Mustang the number of visitors is limited to 1,000 annually and requires each visitor to pay a $500 fee for a ten day visit. Other restricted areas include border communities in Humla, Gorkha, Dolpo, Manang, and Manaslu. Since then, Nepal’s electricity generation landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation. The country currently has a surplus from hydropower and solar energy. This is expected to keep growing for the foreseeable future. Harnessing this electricity to boost mountain tourism can enhance local livelihoods and reduce outmigration of youth. The tourism sector employs 1 million people and contributes 8% to Nepal’s GDP. In comparison, more than 3.5 million Nepalis work abroad and their remittances make up 27% of GDP. Growth in the tourism sector could significantly expand employment opportunities at home.&nbsp; Namche Bazar is proof that electricity can take mountain tourism to the next level both by increasing the carrying capacity of high Himalayan regions by substituting for biomass fuel, and increasing employment through value-added services and infrastructure development.&nbsp; Electrifying the country’s tourism sector has the potential to significantly increase its contribution to the economy, and take it closer to another tourism-powered South Asian country, the Maldives, where tourism’s share of the economy is 60%.&nbsp; Given that Nepal’s electricity is from renewable resources, any tourism it powers can also be marketed as producing minimal greenhouse gases. If tourists could be transported in electric vehicles to and from the airport and to the roadhead leading to their trekking destinations, it would further lower emissions. This is an additional selling point at a time when many environmentally conscious tourists are looking to lower their carbon footprint. The NEA can play an important role by increasing the supply, capacity, and reliability of electricity along existing, popular trekking trails. The extension of the national grid to Tilicho Base Camp last week is the right step. Even though the country’s electrification rate has now reached 99%, supply challenges remain. The task is made easier for NEA since practically all <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/people-power/decentralising-power-in-nepal" target="_blank">regions with tourism potential have hydropower projects</a> either operating or under construction within their own districts. This makes it much easier to ensure a reliable supply with good voltage. In the Annapurna region, electricity has reached nearly all communities with Ghandruk and Jomsom connected to the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/nepal-electricity-demand-soars" target="_blank">national grid</a> in 2017 and 2018 respectively. However, without improved reliability of supply, tourism enterprises will continue to use firewood and imported LPG for cooking.&nbsp; In light of the damage caused by the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/climate-breakdown-linked-to-thame-flood" target="_blank">glacial lake outburst flood that hit Thame in August</a>, the power supply for Namche and the region would be much more resilient if it was connected to the national grid. NEA also needs to extend transmission lines to Upper Mustang and other restricted areas that aspire to host higher tourist numbers than they are currently allowed.&nbsp; Investment in extending power supply along the 16 districts traversed by the Great Himalayan Trail would accelerate the development of green and sustainable tourism in those areas. For other tourism sites where NEA does not plan to extend the grid in the next five years, micro-hydro and solar energy will remain important solutions.&nbsp; The two 900 kW mini-hydro projects under construction to supply the villages of Ama Dablam and Monjo, both in the Everest region, are good examples of the support the <a href="http://www.aepc.gov.np/" target="_blank">Alternative Energy Promotion Centre </a>needs to continue to provide for off-grid power to support the tourism sector. Bikash Pandey is Director of Clean Energy and Circular Economy at Winrock International. People Power is his regular column in Nepali Times on global energy issues relevant to Nepal.

Nepal can level up tourism with electricity

Nepal’s national electricity grid is supplied with power from a remarkably decentralised array of 162 hydropower projects and 14 solar photovoltaic schemes spread across 43 districts, supplying power over the grid to 30 million people.
Another 249 hydropower projects and 14 solar projects are at different stages of construction, positioning 11 new districts to contribute power to the grid by 2030. Six of the country’s seven provinces generate hydropower as their main energy source, while Madhes Province generates solar energy.&nbsp;
While NEA (Nepal Electricity Authority) and its subsidiaries own and operate 20 generation stations, the remaining are owned and operated by Independent Power Producers (IPP). All but two of the IPPs are Nepali companies that have successfully mobilised over $2 billion in investment.
This investment has been spread widely across the country. Eleven districts generate more than 100MW each with Dolakha, Lamjung, Solukhumbu, and Ramechhap each exceeding 200MW (map). The average size of hydropower projects on Nepal’s grid is 15.5MW, while the average solar project is 4.2MW.
The average size of projects under construction is larger -- 39.5MW for hydro and 6.9MW for solar respectively.&nbsp;
For most hill and mountain districts, hydropower is easily the largest investment, private or public, in their history. &nbsp;
This decentralised power generation model is a relatively recent development for Nepal. In 1995 when the World Bank withdrew (adjoining article) its planned investment from the 201MW Arun III project, NEA had not envisioned the entry of the private sector. In fact, its published strategy was to mobilise international aid for hydropower projects larger than Arun III.
The well-known cancellation of Arun III in 1995 and the availability of alternative models led to Nepal's decentralised power development. It matters that this distributed generation and storage of electricity is close to the point of use.
Centralised power stations have been the norm for industrialised and emerging economies to achieve rapid and cheap electrification, taking advantage of economies of scale of large power plants.
Also in Nepal, when its vast hydropower potential was first quantified in the 1960s, plans were drawn up for mega hydropower projects with reservoirs such as Karnali, Kosi, and Pancheswar. None of these could be realised, however, due to lack of financing.&nbsp;
Donor funds could never be aggregated at the scale needed for the investments required, and the country was not attractive to the international private sector. Nepal opted not to invite India to construct its large hydropower projects to supply the Indian market the way Bhutan did.
It took the country 40 years to find its way -- generation led by private domestic investment supplemented by public sector involvement by the NEA.&nbsp;
The cancellation of Arun III resulted in the government signing expensive dollar-denominated power purchase agreements (PPA) with international producers like Khimti (60MW) and Bhote Kosi (45MW) to partially make up for the shortfall. These were against the wishes of NEA management.&nbsp;
It was in reaction to these expensive PPAs that engineers at NEA received permission to develop Chilime (20MW) with rupee-denominated PPA and the government at the time announced a standard tariff in NPR for power generated by IPPs.&nbsp;
Once NEA showed its willingness to sign these PPAs, hundreds of companies sprang up to apply for licenses to survey and construct small hydropower plants throughout the country.
Decentralised power development contributes to construction jobs and infrastructure investment, especially in remote districts where many of the best hydropower sites are located.&nbsp;
Construction of an electricity generation station provides at one go the two most important infrastructure any district needs to generate jobs — power and a road.&nbsp;
Decentralised generation provides energy security to load centres throughout the country since damage to power plants in one part of the country need not affect other areas that have their own generation. It also reduces transmission losses as large amounts of power do not have to be transported from one end of the country to another.
Nepal’s strategy of decentralised power development is coming to maturity in the era of the climate crisis, when the global response has been a surge in renewable energy investments and grids all over the world pushing to become decentralised.&nbsp;
Landslides, flooding and glacial lake outburst floods have always posed risks to infrastructure projects in the Himalaya, and climate breakdown has increased this risk with the severity and frequency of cloud bursts.&nbsp;
The 2024 monsoon has been particularly bad, temporarily shutting down NEA’s 456MW Upper Tamakosi, 60MW Upper Trisuli 3A, 40MW Chameliya, and 10MW Sunkosi projects,&nbsp;
It also downed the 36MW Balefi, 20MW Lower Modi, 18MW Middle Modi, and 7.5 MW Indrawati III operated by IPPs.
Nonetheless, there has not been any increase in load shedding because power plants across other river basins continued to generate without interruption.&nbsp;
Having power plants spread across two thirds of the country rather than concentrated in a few river valleys distributes the risk to the country’s entire power supply.&nbsp;
Adding solar energy to the generation mix diversifies the types of renewable energy available and contributes to power in the winter months. It also makes the grid more secure during periods of drought when hydropower production declines.&nbsp;
Solar energy is a perfect complement to hydro since by definition its production will peak during periods with low rainfall.
Distributed generation is shaping up to be an important component of Nepal’s decentralised energy system. This increases energy security to users and reduces transmission losses.
The roughly 10MW of rooftop solar PV systems that have been installed in the past year by hotels, factories, medical colleges and flour mills to reduce their electricity bills is an example of how it is catching on.
Decentralised and distributed generation do have additional costs in the need for more extensive power networks. Extending high voltage transmission lines to evacuate power from smaller local projects adds cost.&nbsp;
However, every power plant and the transmission line to access it has aided Nepal in accelerating electrification and strengthening power infrastructure to the district where it is located.
As networks become more complex, utility-scale battery storage, and the availability of distributed storage in electric vehicles, the grid needs to be made smarter to better manage the tens of thousands of generation and storage points Nepal is likely to have in the coming years. &nbsp;
Bikash Pandey is Director of Clean Energy and Circular Economy at Winrock International. People Power is his new regular column in Nepali Times on global energy issues relevant to Nepal. &nbsp;

Decentralising power in Nepal

Nepal has had an impressive growth in hydropower development over the past decade from 734MW in 2014 to a combined capacity of 2,625MW from solar and hydropower stations, with 95% of households connected to the grid. Investment to the tune of $5 billion, predominantly in domestic NPR, is estimated to have gone into new generation projects in this time to complete construction and invest in some 8,000MW of new power plants that are at various stages of design and construction. It is certainly reassuring to a population still suffering PTSD from years of brutal load-shedding to realise that Nepal is headed for long term power surplus, with prospects in 2024 for the first time to export more power than import from India, if the monsoon cooperates. One important question in a lot of people’s minds, however, is how Nepal’s generation of clean energy compares with the fossil fuel Nepal continues to import at an annual cost of almost $3 billion, and growing. Are we anywhere close to generating the hydropower and solar energy needed to replace the petroleum fuel that Nepal imports? At first glance it looks like the gap is discouragingly large. NEA sold just over 10 billion kWh or 10 TWh of electricity in 2023. In the same year, all the petroleum-based fuels the Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) imported had a total energy content of 40TWh. It would seem that NEA and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) would need to complete construction of the full pipeline of 8,000MW on top of what they are already generating to match even the petroleum fuel we use today. Fortunately, electricity can be used more efficiently than fossil fuels. An LPG stove has a thermal efficiency of around 50%, reflecting the percentage of heat from burning the mix of propane and butane that is transferred to the pot. The rest goes into heating the burner, the counter-top, and the rest of the kitchen. An induction cooker on the other hand is able to transfer around 90% of the energy directly to the pot since the cooking surface does not even get hot itself. So, cooking with electricity can be accomplished with 45% less energy compared to LPG with the use of an efficient appliance.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240802120856_d0349977d5fb14944e7897b9bd8bad605348f6d9351fcc70a2e6cc7a178bc8dc.webp" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20240802120856_d0349977d5fb14944e7897b9bd8bad605348f6d9351fcc70a2e6cc7a178bc8dc" data-rendition-name="original" width="992" height="1245" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal turns on the electric switch NT"> <figcaption>INDUCTION STOVES: 90% of the energy in induction stoves is transferred directly to the pot, so cooking with electricity uses 45% less energy compared to LPG. PHOTO: CLIMATE AND CLEAN AIR COALITION</figcaption> </figure>  The end-use efficiency advantage is even more impressive when it comes to transportation. A petrol burning internal combustion engine converts only 20% of the energy the fuel produces into motion. The remaining 80% of the energy content of the petrol is lost as heat in the engine, requiring a radiator to keep the engine from overheating. An electric vehicle on the other hand uses high efficiency motors that have conversion efficiencies in the range of 80-85%. Even with the 20% ‘round trip’ losses in charging and discharging the battery, an EV uses less than a third of the energy to drive a kilometre than an equivalent petroleum fuel vehicle does. Since close to 95% of the petroleum fuel imported into Nepal is used to meet either road transportation or cooking needs, it is very encouraging that appliances already exist in the market for Nepal to transition away from petroleum fuel. Similar efficiencies exist for switching away from diesel irrigation to electric pumps and for a range of industrial processes to switch from using different fossil fuels to electricity. For the consumer to switch over to electric cooking and electricity-fueled transportation, the relative prices of each energy type are important, along with the improved efficiency. Here too the news is promising: NEA’s applicable domestic electricity tariff for users wanting to cook with electricity for cooking or charging EVs at home is a maximum of Rs11 per kWh. This compares with Rs18.5 per kWh of petrol and Rs9.83 per kWh of LPG. Once the thermal efficiency is taken into account, however, the effective price of petrol and LPG go up to Rs55.50 and Rs17.87 respectively for driving the same distance or cooking the same volume of food as one kWh of electricity. Two final barriers must be removed before consumers will be able to make the switch to efficient electric vehicles and cooking appliances. First: NEA must invest in strengthening transmission and distribution networks. It is not enough for there to be sufficient hydropower and solar energy generated if the power lines and transformers are not sufficiently sized to distribute the additional electricity needed for switching to electricity. Second: end-users must be able to afford EVs and cooking appliances. The government and banks have an important role to play in making this transition happen. The government needs to appreciate the tradeoff: provide tax incentives for people to purchase EVs and high efficiency electric appliances that can replace petroleum. Banks need to provide financing for users to be able to purchase EVs and appliances and pay for them from the savings in fuel. The good news is Nepal is very close to generating enough electricity to replace petroleum imports. Making up for 40TWh of petroleum fuel will likely require less than 20TWh of electricity. Extrapolating from the rate of growth of hydropower and solar generation over the past decade, Nepal could have sufficient clean energy projects online to be generating 30TWh as early as 2028. &nbsp; Bikash Pandey is Director of Clean Energy and Circular Economy at Winrock International. People Power is his new regular column in Nepali Times on global energy issues relevant to Nepal.

Nepal turns on the electric switch

Fenerbahçe Beko won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague finals in Abu Dhabi, held 23-25 May, defeating Monaco 81-70 in the final. Olympiacos, who defeated Panathinaikos 97-93, finished the series in third place. The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final match, Nigel Hayes-Davis from Fenerbahçe Beko, received a prize of 1,000,000 Miles&amp;Smiles from Turkish Airlines’ Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmuştur. The carrier has been the title sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, a top tier tournament, since 2010.

Turkish Basketball

Thousands of Nepali students dreaming of an American education have been forced to look elsewhere as the Trump administration’s visa restrictions make their future uncertain.
The US was long considered a top destination for higher studies, making Nepal the 10th biggest country of origin for international students in America.&nbsp;
However, that number has seen a significant decline with the total for Nepali students now at 16,482. Some 8,000 Nepali students obtained no-objection certificates to study in the US from the Ministry of Education in the past year.&nbsp;
India, Australia, Canada, South Korea, United Kingdom and Japan are the other popular destinations for Nepali students. There are no clear numbers for Nepalis going to India, but a slight decline was noted this year after the deaths of two female students.
The US State Department has issued a circular to its embassies not to issue new visas to applicants until further notice. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the directive stated that the department planned to expand the screening of applicants' social media.&nbsp;
While new applicants are barred including those applying for visitor visas, students with scheduled interviews are allowed to proceed.
“Many of our students are affected by the new restrictions, but those who had applied for student visas earlier have got interview dates,” one Kathmandu-based college counsellor told us.
Meanwhile, even foreign students with spotless records already in the US have not been spared, as visa scrutiny intensifies under the new policy. In a move that underscores the growing sense of insecurity, many US colleges advised international students to carry their passports and documents at all times, even when traveling locally.
“Me and my friends did not go home this summer because we were not sure we would be allowed back, so we just went to Niagara Falls,” said a Nepali undergrad in Ohio, who like many interviewed for this report did not want her name used for fear of repercussion.
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Nepali students have adopted a cautious stance, with many choosing not to return home during summer vacation due to fear of visa revocations as well as travel bans. Meanwhile, over 7,000 Nepalis with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will have to come back to Nepal by 5 August or face deportation. Thirty-seven were flown back to Kathmandu on Omni Air last week.
“The US is one of the most sought-after destinations for higher education, and the ban will definitely impact bright students,” says Narottam Aryal of the King’s College in Kathmandu.
Indeed, Nepali undergraduates admitted into Ivy League colleges for the 2025 academic year have been asked to look for alternatives. The entire Fulbright Foreign Scholarships Board resigned on Wednesday citing interference from the Trump administration on the selection of this year’s cohort. Some Nepali students already on Fulbright scholarships have noted disruptions, delays and even cancellation of stipends.&nbsp;
The student visa restrictions were initially just for foreign students admitted to Harvard University, but it was later extended to all Chinese students and now to all students. Universities like Columbia which actively recruit foreign students, face sharp enrolment declines, threatening their financial stability and diversity.
An Indian female PhD candidate at Columbia University had her visa revoked by the US State Department, and said she was targeted on the basis of her social media posts on Israeli military attacks in Gaza. Social media vetting of political activism has raised concerns about privacy and freedom of expression in a country where such rights were a given.
Many students have been informed via email that their visas have been revoked for getting speeding or parking tickets, but even others with no criminal record have been affected. The fear of deportation looms large amongst international students, including those from Nepal.&nbsp;
For most Nepalis who migrate to the US for education, the journey is a high-stakes investment. They come largely from middle-class families, often rely on a patchwork of scholarships, work-study programs, loans, or even the sale of family assets to afford fees.
Most Nepali students pursue STEM subjects which offer extended Optional Practical Training (OPT) periods that help fund their education. But with the US backsliding on education and humanitarian matters, countries like the UK and Canada are becoming more attractive despite their own recent stricter controls on student visas.&nbsp;
The UK universities saw a 63% rise in Nepali students’ admissions in 2024. Japan is another popular destination with 64,816 Nepali students enrolled as of 2024.
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Already, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia are poised to benefit from the increased scrutiny of US student visas. Several Hong Kong universities are offering unconditional admission to affected students, while Malaysian institutions are targeting previously US-bound Asian students. China and India have 330,000 and 280,000 students respectively in America, but the numbers for China have seen a sharp drop in the past year.
Elsewhere, branch campuses of American institutions such as NYU in Abu Dhabi, Georgetown in Dubai and Northwestern in Doha are getting more admission applications, and universities in the Gulf region are expanding infrastructure to accommodate those who would otherwise have gone to the US.&nbsp;
Even educational institutions in Nepal are hopeful that the US visa restrictions can be an opportunity to at least keep Nepali undergrads in Nepal, and also attract foreign students from the region.&nbsp;
“Many students might choose to complete their undergraduate degree here in Nepal and then move abroad for their Master’s degree later,” says Aryal of King’s College. “There was a need for quality higher education in Nepal anyway in terms of innovation and opportunities, so this could be the time to reduce our dependence on other countries.”
Nepal’s strategic position between India and China makes it sensitive to US policy shifts. India, a key ally, is also under US scrutiny for potential student travel restrictions. Chinese universities are already offering more scholarships to Nepali talent to capitalise on the US retreat.
American universities have challenged student visa restrictions in the courts. A federal court in Boston revoked the blanket ban on Harvard, and the State Department has ordered the resumption of processing student and exchange visitor visas.&nbsp;
Some are still hoping that President Trump will backtrack on the student visa restrictions, just like he has done with many of his more drastic executive orders.
Even so, the visa see-saw and longer-term uncertainties about living in the United States and its education system means students across the world are making alternative plans.
Says Aryal: “Policies of foreign countries change according to their needs, so excessive dependence was never a good idea. We should work to create different opportunities and choices of higher education within Nepal, so students are retained.” &nbsp;

America no longer prime destination for Nepali students

While Nepal was hosting the Sagarmatha Sambaad international climate conference in Kathmandu this month, on Mt Everest it was pretty much business as usual.&nbsp; The signs of climate breakdown are all there: a river now runs through Base Camp in summer, the Khumbu Icefall is more unstable, and there are more &nbsp;frequent avalanches. When expeditions arrived in March, the mountains were bare: it had not snowed since September, but then blizzards dumped unseasonal snow in May. And despite climate worries, such is the pull of Himalayan mountaineering that the Everest Industry showed no signs of slowdown. More than 600 international climbers and their Nepali guides had made it to the summit of the world’s highest mountain. At one point there were an estimated 2,000 people in the tent city on the Khumbu Glacier. All the ropes and ladders on the Icefall came down on Thursday, marking the official end of the spring climbing season, and just in time to avoid a monsoon cyclone approaching from the Bay of Bengal. It has been an action-packed season. One factor could be that Everest fees will go up from September: each foreign climber needs to pay a $15,000 royalty, up from the present $11,000. The cost for a Nepali climber on the South Col route will also go up: from Rs75,000 to Rs150,000.&nbsp; The fee to climb Everest in autumn is $7,500 (up from $5,500), but most climbers still prefer spring. Winter permit fee (December-February) is only $3,750 per person and the mountain is now also open for monsoon (June-August) climbs, when the fee is ever lower at $2,750. The revised rule also makes it mandatory for every two climbers on an 8,000m peak to hire one Nepali mountain guide.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025053004050_67f856fe52714e4bdcf21ae7d45c6f18c82117b9d0a5f73ed1efa04c96de1046.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025053004050_67f856fe52714e4bdcf21ae7d45c6f18c82117b9d0a5f73ed1efa04c96de1046" data-rendition-name="original" width="931" height="732" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry graph 1"> </figure>  In addition, climbers also have to pay for porters and guides, equipment, Base Camp costs, Ice Fall and fixed rope team fees, so climbing Everest does not come cheap. But such is the draw of climbing the world’s highest peak that some say the increased fees will not diminish the crowds next year. The government has tried to spread expeditions out to other seasons and other 8,000ers, but with not much success. Earlier this year, Nepal unilaterally increased the number of 8,000m peaks to 14 by adding six more sub-summits to broaden the choice for climbers. Added were: Yalung Kang (8,505m), Yalung Kang West (8,077m) &nbsp;Kangchenjunga Central (8,473m), Kangchenjunga South (8,476m), Lhotse Middle (8,410m) and Lhotse Shar (8,400m).&nbsp; The announcement could go against the accepted topographic criteria that a stand alone peak has to be at least 300m higher than an adjoining prominence, and at more than 3km isolation from it. The UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme) still recognises only 14 mountains as eight-thousanders, and only eight of those are in Nepal, or on the border with China. Nepal’s revised mountaineering regulations also increased the insurance coverage of high-altitude workers to protect porters and high altitude guides who usually take more risks on the mountains. Rescue teams and clean-up campaigners to collect trash and remove bodies of dead climbers up to Camp IV of Mt Everest do not need permits.&nbsp; The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee is now using drones to fly down trash in 20kg sacks. Each climber is also required to bring down at least 6kg of waste and not just their own, but this rule is erratically enforced. With five fatalities on Everest and Lhotse, Spring 2025 had a historically low death toll. Another five climbers died on Annapurna, Kangchenjunga and Makalu.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025053004050_38681de22f0fefb6faa12b01755566d09c5064d0ff84e12ccc7b5d68ea9ba38a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025053004050_38681de22f0fefb6faa12b01755566d09c5064d0ff84e12ccc7b5d68ea9ba38a" data-rendition-name="original" width="665" height="740" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest industry graph 2"> </figure>  Journalist Ben Ayers who ran the Everest Live social media channel from Everest Base Camp with daily updates credited the low death rate to dramatic rescues of climbers from the ‘Death Zone’ by their Nepali guides and longline helievacs — the visuals all uploaded on YouTube.&nbsp; “Ironically, this perception of safety is bringing more and more inexperienced climbers to the mountain, and they need more rescues,” Ayers said in one of his dispatches.&nbsp; American expedition chronicler and summiteer Alan Arnette suspects there is a lot of under-reporting given that the jet stream and storms were lashing Everest even till late in the season. He told us: “I heard a lot about frostbite and rescues that were not made public. It’s become practically impossible to cover the details on Everest. All the teams report nice news, and they don’t talk about bad stuff to avoid hurting businesses.” Although trash on Nepal’s mountains makes headlines, what does not receive as much attention is the climate impact of so many expeditions. The Sagarmatha Sambaad conference sidestepped this issue, which is ironic given that the impact of climate breakdown is most evident on Himalayan peaks and their glaciers.&nbsp; <h2>Need for Speed</h2> The big stories this year have been about speed-running from their home cities to the top of Everest. Ukrainian entrepreneur Andrew Ushakov flew out of JFK on 15 May at 10:15AM Nepal time, and was on the summit 3 days, 23 hours, and 7 minutes later on 19 May at 9:22AM.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250601080640_1c5cc6fc991307861768f07037ed9d30930fb20f35dbb57dc31c9a92a9e1a885.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250601080640_1c5cc6fc991307861768f07037ed9d30930fb20f35dbb57dc31c9a92a9e1a885" data-rendition-name="original" width="1440" height="1800" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry"> <figcaption>Andrew Ushakov at the summt. Photo: ELITE EXPED</figcaption> </figure>  “I could never find the time for the traditional 40-50 days of acclimatisation,” Ushakov explained matter-of-factly. His ‘Everest Sea-to-Summit’ climb was possible because he spent 400 hours in hypoxic sleep tents over the past four years in New York. However, Ushakov did use ropes already fixed, hired four Nepali guides, helicoptered to Base Camp, and used much more oxygen than an average climber. And after the climb, Ushakov was arrested at Kathmandu airport for being in possession of $20,000 of undeclared cash and spent a night in jail and fined $60,000.&nbsp; The other speedsters were Garth Miller, Alastair Cairns, Anthony Stazicker, and Kev Godlington, all former British Army commandos. They left London and summited five days later on 21 May, and flew right back. They also used hypoxic tents to simulate the thin air high on Everest.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250601080644_90c8dd5cc07b4b43f2989b1dc0c0650ab80f10ebb06680c25a6909c519957bd8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250601080644_90c8dd5cc07b4b43f2989b1dc0c0650ab80f10ebb06680c25a6909c519957bd8" data-rendition-name="original" width="810" height="668" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry "> <figcaption>All four members of the Furtenbach team at the summit. Photo: Sandro Gromen-Hayes</figcaption> </figure>  But more controversial was their use of xenon gas therapy in a German hospital to ramp up the production of oxygen-carrying haemoglobins in their blood. Xenon is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency for being performance enhancing in sports. Expedition leader Lukas Furtenbach said this rule does not apply to mountaineering, as it is not a regulated sport like swimming. Nepal has no rules about xenon, but the Department of Tourism said it was launching an ‘investigation’ to decide on future policy since it is difficult to ban xenon, but allow oxygen. The controversy has also divided the mountaineering community, with some climbers saying they just want to maximise their chances of survival. Spending less time on the mountain could make climbing safer by reducing avalanche risk. It would also mean less trash on the mountains, but it would reduce the income of Nepal’s expedition industry. It is also unclear how much of the success was due to xenon therapy and whether the ex-special forces were already in good physical shape.&nbsp; The need for speed hides the fact that climbing in the Himalaya is dangerous business, and climbers cannot sprint to the top just by huffing xenon. But ultra-fast climbs could be charged more, and the revenue generated can be used to establish state-of-the-art rescue operations, and increase pay and insurance for guides. Two other speed chasers this season were Swiss-Ecuadorian Karl Egloff and American Tyler Andrews, both on Everest without oxygen. Andrews choppered to Base Camp to catch a weather window, but turned back from 8,500m due to high winds. Heavy snow and wind also forced Egloff to descend from 7,000m. Slow and steady climbers like Anja Blacha from Germany did make it to the summit without oxygen, while Kami Rita Sherpa broke his own record with his 31st Everest summit as he led a 26-strong Indian Army group. There were 468 permits issued for foreign climbers from 48 expeditions to Everest this spring. Nepal’s other eight-thousanders together had only 17 expeditions. Nepal has more than 1,000 peaks above 6,000m, and has opened only 476 of them for climbing.&nbsp;

The Everest Industry

While Nepal marked <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mt-everest-pvt-ltd">Mt Everest</a> Day on 29 May, on the other side of the planet in the US state of Colorado dozens of Nepalis who have climbed the world’s highest peak multiple times were busy working as chefs and Uber drivers. Among them is Nima Doma Sherpa, who climbed Mt Everest in 2019 after her husband Tshering Wangchu was among 16 crushed by an avalanche on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/on-thin-ice-in-the-khumbu">the Khumbu Icefall</a> five years earlier. A large serac broke off the West Shoulder of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-everest-industry">Mt Everest </a>and fell directly on a group of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/more-porters-sick-on-everest-trail">porters and guides</a> making their way up the Icefall at 5,800m. Their bodies were flown by helicopter to Khumjung where Tshering Wangchu was born. He was excited about climbing Mt Everest for the first time.&nbsp; In Khumjung, Nima Doma felt like her own life had also ended. This was the kind of news Sherpa wives, mothers and sisters dreaded every <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/peak-climbing-season-2025-s4abrxny">mountaineering season</a>. She stayed home for more than two years grieving, but ultimately gathered up all her emotional strength to take care of her 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. Nima had grown up in Khumjung hearing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/stories-of-nepal-s-summiteers">tales of adventure on the mountains </a>from their father, Ang Chubi Sherpa who had climbed Everest in 1993. He used to bring her and her sisters and brother European chocolates after every expedition, and used to tell them that the chocolate bars grew on the mountains. “It was only after we got older did we realise that he told us that chocolates grew in the mountains so we would not worry about him putting himself in harm's way,” Nima Doma recalled with a faraway look at her home in Boulder this week. Nima went to the school that <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/commemorating-edmund-hillary-in-nepal,4145">Edmund Hillary</a> opened in Khumjung till Grade 8, and then dropped out to help in the kitchen and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">tend yaks</a>. She was married off to Tshering Wangchu, who was also a high altitude guide. When Tshering went on expeditions, Nima also started working as a porter from Namche to Base Camp. It was perhaps her father’s tales of mountains of chocolates that had always attracted her to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/knowing-our-mountains-43v4iyvo">the peaks</a>. After her husband was killed ten years ago this month, being a widow with children was not easy for Nima Doma. But she was not alone: there were at least 200 single mothers in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/khumbu-since-1950-jaww4qn0">the Khumbu</a>, and 20 of them just in Khumjung whose husbands had been killed in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/tragic-start-to-himalayan-spring-nepal,3695">mountaineering accidents</a>. Some were not even 20 years old, and had children growing up without fathers. But there were also women in the 50s whose husbands had been killed in the 1980s. Nima found sponsors for her children’s education, and moved to Kathmandu. In the capital, Sherpa widows used to meet to help each other. Some of them had joined the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) training for rock and ice climbing. “I decided that it was no use sitting home and crying anymore, after meeting other single mothers I felt less alone,” remembers Nima, who joined the Juniper Foundation and enrolled in an NMA training camp in Manang. There she climbed Chulu East (6,584m) and met Furadiki Sherpa, whose rope-fixing husband had also been <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/on-mt-everest-s-70th-records-and-fatalities">killed on Everest</a> in 2013. They set themselves the goal of climbing Everest one day, and started a fund-raising drive.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250530090544_621be0724b9182c8e3594b2c562a71ec32ac01d985a71d0cf31646de9d51e15a.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250530090544_621be0724b9182c8e3594b2c562a71ec32ac01d985a71d0cf31646de9d51e15a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2678" height="1274" loading="lazy" alt="Everest summiteers find new life in the US"> </figure>  “We decided we had to overcome society’s stigma of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/widows-personal-happiness-comes-last-in-face-of-social-financial-hardships,1855">widowhood</a> and prove that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-junko-tabei">women could also climb mountains</a>,” Nima said, adding that she was inspired by Nepal’s first woman Everest summiteer Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, who died during her descent in 1993. Nima Doma and Furdiki climbed the technically-difficult Ama Dablam (6,812m) and then arrived at Everest Base Camp in April 2019 as part of their Two Widows Expedition with the motto, ‘So Can We’. While climbing up the Icefall Nima passed the spot where her husband had been killed. It was a jumble of constantly-shifting ice blocks bigger than houses. She closed her eyes and said a prayer. “I remember thinking, this is so difficult and dangerous. This is what my husband had to do to support our family,” Nima Doma said. “I was determined to fulfil my husband’s dream of climbing Chomolungma, and to prove to ourselves that we two women could do it.” It was 23 May 2019 when <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/world/two-sherpa-widows-scale-everest-and-smash-stigma-idUSKCN1SU0MV/" target="_blank">Nima and Furdiki stepped on the summit</a> and looked over into Tibet, and down at Tengboche Monastery to the south.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250530090544_6b822582b5d88ba5e972db084f184690b40653c6efd9901b2dd082ffba2a263b.png" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20250530090544_6b822582b5d88ba5e972db084f184690b40653c6efd9901b2dd082ffba2a263b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2700" height="1522" loading="lazy" alt="Everest summiteers find new life in the US"> </figure>  Nima Doma hugged Furdiki, took off her mask and wept. But for the first time in five years, it was not from grief but relief — relief for being free of all the sadness and sacrifices and for fulfilling her husband’s dream. They had found <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/life-after-death">life after death</a>. “I felt this immense joy to be on top of the world, it was indescribable,” Nima Doma said, “I have wept only twice in my life. Once when my husband died, and once there on top of Everest.” The tears had frozen on Nima Doma’s cheeks, as she and Furdiki headed back down the mountain.