On the day of Lakshmi Puja, the highest demand for electricity is 1602 MW, during peak time 253 MW is exported to India
Kathmandu, 1 November 2022. On this year’s Lakshmi Puja day of Tihar, peak demand for electricity in the country has been recorded at 1602 megawatts.
On the day of Lakshmi Puja, the peak demand of 1602 MW was recorded at 6.25 pm on Sunday. The electricity peak demand on the day of Lakshmi Puja on November 26 last year was 1438 MW. This year, the peak demand on the day of Lakshmi Puja is 164 MW more than last year. As industries and factories are closed during Tihar, the recorded peak demand is from industrial customers. The electricity demand of the Lakshmi Puja day peak was produced and supplied from power plants within the country.
253 megawatts of surplus electricity has been exported to India during the peak period after meeting the electricity demand in the country. Last year only 517 MW was exported during Lakshmi Puja peak time. Due to the damage caused by the flood this year, the power generation of 456 MW Upper Tamakoshi, about 200 MW connected to the Kabeli Corridor transmission line and some other small hydropower projects has been stopped. Due to this, this year’s electricity export has been affected.
On the day of Lakshmi Puja, total electricity demand in the system including export has been recorded at 1855 MW. Last year the peak demand of the system was 1955 MW. This year, on the day of Lakshmi Puja, the peak demand of Kathmandu Valley has been recorded at 390 MW. Last year it was 366 MW.
State Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Purna Bahadur Tamang, Secretary Suresh Acharya, Member of the Board of Directors of Nepal Electricity Authority Ratan Ain, Managing Director Kulman Ghising, Deputy Managing Director of Customer and Distribution Services Directorate Manoj Silwal, Deputy Managing Director of Transmission Directorate Dilghayu Kumar Shrestha and other teams demanded electricity on the day of Lakshmi Puja. And to get information about supply management, he was assigned to the control room of the load dispatch center at Suchatar on Thursday.
Managing Director Ghising said that in the case of load-shedding in the past, the electricity demand on the day of Lakshmi Puja was considered as peak demand, but this is not the case now. Managing Director Ghisingh said, ‘Eight years ago, electricity was imported for the day of Lakshmi Puja to manage the demand. It has been a historic leap in the energy sector to reach the point of exporting electricity saved by domestic production for a few years. We used to export 1,000 megawatts of electricity.’
He said that after the end of load-shedding and the continuous supply of electricity and electrification is done widely, the demand for electricity in the country is increasing every year.
The authority started the load shedding that was going on at that time from the day of Lakshmi Puja in 2016 (BS 2073) as a test. After the test was successful, the country was declared completely load-shedding-free from May 2018. At present, the country is not only free from load shedding, the surplus electricity consumed in the country is being exported during the rainy season. From being a self-importer of electricity, Nepal has become a self-exporter since the last financial year.
To manage the power demand of Lakshmi Puja, although Kulekhani first, second and third reservoirs have a power generation capacity of 106 megawatts, the authority operated them only at 62 megawatts during peak times. 62 megawatts from other power plants owned by the authority, 90 megawatts from power plants owned by subsidiaries of the authority including Chilime, and 1304 megawatts from private sector power plants were produced and supplied.
As in previous years, this year the Authority has succeeded in supplying uninterrupted electricity throughout the country on the day of Lakshmi Puja. The authority had kept the heads of the distribution center power houses and the technical staff there in readiness to prevent power interruption on the day of Lakshmi Puja.
