One year later, the power crisis still exists in Nepal: Is there any solution?

This is a guest post by Er. Nava Raj Karki, a Power System Engineer and Lecturer at Tribhuvan University, Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Nepal. In the beginning of 2009, when Nepal was facing an unprecedented load shedding of 16 hours a day, he analyzed the root causes of the problem and suggested few viable options to combat the crisis (click here to read the previous post). The then Maoist government had come up with the idea of installing 200MW thermal power stations which was later canceled on financial grounds. One year down the lane and nothing significant has been done to avoid power cuts this winter. The government changed and so did their priorities. In this post, Er. Karki intends to analyze the situation of electricity in the country after almost a year. Before he takes over, I thank Karki Sir for penning down this article exclusively for the readers of this blog. Please join me in welcoming him back to Never Stop Dreaming.

Flashback: The Koshi Carnage

Many of us belonging to Nepal are aware of the last year’s record breaking daily power supply cut of 16 hours. For any power system of more than 500MW installed capacity and maximum demand of about 750-800MW, the planned outages referred as LOAD SHEDDING, these figures are unprecedented. One can find very few instances that match Nepal’s power crisis. People keeping a close eye on Nepal’s affairs do remember the natural calamities (but assisted by government inefficiencies) she suffered last year. The Koshi river's eastern embankment breaches that caused large parts of Sunsari and North Bihar flooded taking few hundred lives apart from displacing hundreds of thousands of people in both Nepal and India was not totally caused by excessive water level in the river but because of cutting of spur dams and failure to open gates at Bhimnagar Koshi barrage as required. The Koshi calamity caused many times larger human and financial losses to Bihar compared to Nepal. But because of shear size of the country and inability of Bihari politicians to push central Indian leadership to genuinely take initiative to find long lasting and mutually acceptable solution to this problem, the Koshi flooding soon has been forgotten in India. On the other hand, Nepali economy and people especially from Eastern Nepal suffered hugely as the flooding swept away various sections of East-West highway between Bhantabari and Lauki and isolated Eastern Nepal from rest of the country. It took very long to get the damaged section of the road to get repaired but by that time Nepal has suffered huge financial and economical losses. We will not enter the intricacies of Koshi Treaty that gives sole authority to control, maintain and operate Bhimnagar barrage to India. But since we all know at this point that the flooding was caused not due to unprecedented rainfall but because of failure to repair the embankment on time, one can not get away by blaming the nature for the calamity. Indian government and Bihar government must take the responsibility and compensate for the losses caused to people of Sunsari and the rest of the country. But has our government raised these issues with India ever? No one knows. Except for few independent experts and anti-Indian politicians, no one has raised this issue.

Power Crisis Aggravated

Now, talk about the other severe blow to Nepal by the Koshi flooding – power crisis. The flooding also swept away few 132kV transmission towers of Kataiyya - Duhabi transmission line that was supplying Nepal’s Power grid about 100MW thereby aggravating the already deteriorating power crisis in Nepal. The load shedding which started way back in 2006 was at its worst peak in the winter and spring following the Koshi carnage. Low rainfall in the catchment area of Kulekhani made things further worse. During its peak of the worst, NEA was supplying power only for 8 hours a day that also mostly during off ours, i.e., midnight to dawn and in the afternoons. The electricity users of NEA could derive very little benefit from such supply regime. Various businesses, industries, service sector, non-governmental sectors, technical educational institutions, government offices and even the ordinary customers were inflicted huge financial losses resulting in billions of rupees loss to the nation’s economy already vulnerable because of decade long Maoist insurgency and the volatile political environment.

During the peak of power crisis last year when Maoists were heading the government, there was buzzword doing round about bringing in diesel power plants as a solution. Diesel power plants come in compact form and very little civil structure compared to hydro or other types of thermal plants is required which makes them attractive in situations of emergencies and where the erstwhile standing power generation plants have been rendered non-functional as a result of natural calamities like cyclones, tornadoes, storms, earthquakes, severe flooding, etc. They are only temporary measures. And, the governments in those countries can afford to have such temporary facilities. In case of Nepal, we are talking about installing Diesel plants permanently. Even if the plants we are talking about are provided by rich western countries as a goodwill gift like one in Duhabi (granted by Finnish government), the operation and maintenance cost will be very high for a country like ours to sustain till the generation from hydro becomes enough not to operate these diesel plants. The cost of electricity from diesel power plants at current rate of approximately NRs 55 per litre of diesel will be approximately Rs 20 per KWh.(1UK gallon=4.5461 litres=139000 btu; 1kWh=3412btu, efficiency of diesel plants = 40%. But if the plant is old and would be given to Nepal as ‘GIFT’, then its efficiency may be further low with higher maintenance cost). If you add some surcharge (due to leakage at our public utility), it will further increase by at least by 10-20%. Diesel plants as temporary solution are OK. But to make 200MW diesel plants part of NEA system for the foreseeable future does not have any economic sense even though the cost of not having electricity is much higher than NRs 20 per kWh. Only the residential customers in Nepal have lower supply outage cost than what will be the cost of electricity from these new diesel plants.

What after sufficient hydrogeneration is available with the system?

But supply outage costs solely can never be the basis for evaluating the feasibility of a project. The greatest fear will be the loss to nation after enough hydro generation becomes available in the system. Then the 200MW diesel plant we are talking about now will surely become ‘White Elephant’. Fund will have to be allocated to carry out basic regular maintenance even the plant may not be brought to operation for several months; salaries to the employees of the plant must be paid. The management will stop giving any significance to the plant once power scenario in the country becomes better owing to generation from hydropower plants. The diesel plant will then get less attention and will be treated as un-necessary like Multifuel at Duhabi which resulted in the Multifuel failing to generate more than 13MW when the country was lurking in the dark. Our policy makers and government ministers talk loud when the situation is already very bad but forget once it becomes a little better and again speak loud when the scenario becomes worse. This is nothing but pure politicking. At least the NEA top brass and policy makers of the country should have long term vision and readymade solution package for impending crises and emergencies. Our utility lack Research & Development wing that would have given them clear cut idea of impending power scenario in the country well in advance and compelled them and other policymakers to take appropriate decisions to avert the power crisis. The academia in our country also lacks research activities in such areas which are common in the research menu of academics in other countries. Also, we must find ways to bring down corruption in dealing with construction of new hydropower plants: be it by NEA or by private developers. We must also bring to an end to current licensing system and adopt a new licensing system under purely competitive basis. The company that commits lower rate of electricity to be sold to NEA will get the project. Obviously, other criteria like company’s technical and financial capabilities, its past project completion records, etc must be assessed as done in awarding other big contracts. Again, this process must be really transparent, not in academic means only.

At The End

We must adopt multi pronged strategy to solve the power crisis in the country. Because of transitional phase in the country, the government may not be able to take bold decisions that have long-term repercussions but experts and policymakers must not sleep. They must, at least, explore various options for solution of country’s power crisis and update the political leadership at appropriate time and not become the means and medium to fulfill the vested interests of politicians, big business houses and foreign profiteering agencies. The promotion of micro hydro plants owned and operated by local users group must be upped with increased level of technical support made available at least at all district headquarters; standardization of machines/ equipments used in such plants; assistance in formation of community level energy users groups; etc.