KATHMANDU, JAN 19 –
The government’s efforts to limit load-shedding to 12 hours a day have gone in vain, with the Nepal Electricity Authority ( NEA ) increasing daily power outage to 14 hours from Saturday.
The NEA said it was forced to hike the outage hours after India slashed electricity supply by 30MW from Monday. India had been supplying 115MW electricity to Nepal. Earlier, India had promised to provide an additional 55MW for this winter.
The present power demand in Nepal stands at 1,025MW, but there is a supply of just 425MW, according to NEA . “Low production at home due to decreasing water level in rivers and India cutting down the supply forced us to hike load shedding hours,” said Bhuwan Kumar Chhetri, chief of system operation department at NEA .
About three weeks ago, NEA had increased load-shedding from the 10 to 12 hours a day, citing decreased water level in rivers. A few months ago, the government had introduced the Load Shedding Reduction Action Plan which sought to limit power cuts to below 12 hours a day by increasing electricity import from India, operating thermal plants and controlling leakage.
However, the government’s plan received a setback after India started cutting supply. On Jan 14, the southern neighbour completely halted power supply through the 32KV transmission lines of Raksual-Birgunj, Sitamadhi-Jaleshwor, Kataiya-Rajbiraj. The supply of 20MW electricity through the 132KV Kataiya-Duhabi transmission line was also cut later.
Last winter, Nepal had imported up to 145MW electricity from India, when load-shedding had reached up to 16 hours a day. For this winter, the government had planned early construction of the 400KV Dhalkebar-Mujjaffapur cross-border transmission line, generating 40MW energy from diesel plants, importing 200MW additional energy from India and purchasing electricity from captive plants of local industrial units. However, not even a single plan has so far been implemented properly.
Source : The Kathmandu Post
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14 hrs daily power cuts from Saturday
KATHMANDU, Jan 18: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has increased load-shedding to 14 hours a day effective from Sunday after India reduced power supply by around 25 MW without prior notification.
“Load-shedding has been increased to 98 hours per week,” Bhuwan Kumar Chhetri, chief of NEA´s System Operation Department, told Republica.
India had slashed power supply via Birgunj, Janakpur, Rajbiraj and Hetauda last week without giving prior information to NEA. The fresh reduction means India is exporting only 90 MW to Nepal.
“India has not communicated with us regarding power cut. They have verbally told us that their system needs to be improved,” Rameshwore Yadav, managing director of NEA, said. “We had to revise load-shedding schedule as we are getting less power from India.”
India reduced power supply to Nepal a few weeks after it expressed commitment to export additional 55 MW during the visit of President Dr Ram Baran Yadav in the last week of December.
In line with the Indian commitments, a team of NEA officials had visited India last week to fix logistic requirements for the import of additional 55 MW.
“The meeting was positive. We also held discussion on long-term power trade between Nepal and India,” Yadav, who had led the Nepali team to India, said.
Yadav said there was no sign of India increasing power supply to Nepal in the near future. “They keep saying that their system will be improved in a couple of days. We don´t know when that will happen,” he added.
The government had earlier announced that it would limit power cuts to 12 hours a day in the dry season. NEA officials say load-shedding hours will go further up if India does not increase power supply.
Source : Republica
