14 hours of load-shedding a day next winter

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    KATHMANDU, May 12

    loadsheddingThere will be load-shedding of up to 14 hours a day even during the next year due to the lack of balance between demand and supply of electricity. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has projected a deficit of around 650 MW in February and March next year due to receding water level in rivers.

    Peak demand during the dry season will rise to 1284 MW while supply will be just 735 MW including that imported from India, according to the projection. Load-shedding was limited to 12 hours a day during the current year and it is being reduced to 10 hours a day effective from Wednesday. It will not fall below six hours a day even during the upcoming rainy season. The five-year corporate plan prepared by NEA states that control of load-shedding will be difficult in the next year but it will gradually fall in the following years. The NEA board, however, has yet to approve the corporate plan. The plan warns that load-shedding can be limited to 14 hours a day only if additional electricity were to be imported from India, the projects in pipeline are completed in time and the reservoir of Kulekhani is filled completely, and it can worsen otherwise. A total of 18 MW will be added to the system in the current fiscal year if six small hydropower projects were to be completed as per the schedule. A total of 60 MW is scheduled to be added to the system in the next year while demand rises by around 80 MW a year.

    Electricity generated from Sanima Mai Hydropower Project (22 MW) will be added to the system only from the next fiscal year due to delay in construction of transmission line. Only a few of the projects scheduled to be completed in the next fiscal year look likely to be completed in time. Load-shedding will not be reduced the next year as projects with combined installed capacity of 119 MW that were scheduled to be completed will not be completed. Only 60 MW will be added to the system in the next fiscal year though 30 MW Chameliya and 14 MW Kulekhani III of NEA and different private sector projects with capacity of 75 MW were to be completed in the year. Sanima Mai, Mailung (5 MW), Upper Mai (9 MW) and others are set to be completed in the next fiscal year.

    There will be deficit of 486 MW in 2015/16, 533 MW in 2016/17 and 88 MW in 2017/18, according to the corporate plan of NEA. Load-shedding will gradually fall after that. The current installed capacity in the country is 770 MW including thermal plants. Capacity of three-kilometer line of the 132 KV Kataiya-Kushaha Transmission on the Indian side, meanwhile, could not be increased. Another 40 MW can be imported from that line after increasing the capacity. Work has not been started as the Indian side has raised the issue of foreign conductors despite repeated requests by NEA.

    Source : Karobar Daily