Living in the Dark Age

At a time when the entire world is looking for ways to curb the global financial crisis, our nation is hinged to the basics—the issue of Energy Crisis, which has virtually turned into a National Crisis. Our demand is not much—it is just 770 MW, which rises by approximately 100 MW every year. However, it’s a pity that, in a country where many rivers cascading down from the Himalayas have the potential to generate up to 83,000 MW of electricity, is generating only 336 MW, not even 1% of the total capacity. The potential that Nepal holds is equivalent to the combined installed hydroelectricity capacity of Canada, the United States and Mexico, but it is a shame that it is the residents of this country who are living in darkness.

A Nepali blogger puts the situation very pertinently: “People plan their days accordingly. They sleep and wake up accordingly. Businesses and office-goers, and professionals try to adjust their work and daily routine in harmony with the load-shedding schedule published by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), who is very good at doing it. It changes its schedule and duration time and again, citing different reasons. In summers, it’s usually because of the flooding at certain rivers that disturb the hydro-power plants. In winters, it’s because most rivers originating in the mountains decrease in their volumes because the snow melts less. At other times, it’s because one or the other power plant needs to be closed because of technical difficulties. At no point do we learn about measures taken to forestall annual occurrences of such events.

Every week, we are given a new load-shedding schedule, issued by NEA, with escalating hours of load-shedding. What once started as an hourly ritual has transformed to 16 hours—a tremendous growth in a two-year period. The reason is the energy deficit that stands at 3.8 million units per day. Last year, the country’s energy crisis stood at 430 million units, resulting in an estimated loss of Rs. 32 billion. The situation has been aggravated following a yawning gap between demand and supply—a recurrent problem around this time of the year when the snow-fed rivers run dry.

The present energy crisis is the result of an incapability to formulate strategies according to annual demand after the establishment of Kaligandaki, a Hydropower Project, which is the main storage power producer generating 140 MW. The crisis has also been attributed to the government’s inability to meet the target of the 10th Five Year Plan. Though the target was production of 315 MW, only 40 MW was generated.

As a result of lean monsoon, the water level in rivers and the Kulekhani reservoir have been receding. Countries that depend on hydropower have to face such situation of power shortage during winter, and Nepal’s obvious dependence on hydropower has brought the country to this threshold. Importing power from India is one option. In September, India’s Power Trading Corporation signed an agreement to supply additional power to tide over the crisis. However, the transmission lines between South Nepal and India were damaged during floods in August and despite posturing to rebuild the damaged infrastructure on a war-footing, the government has failed to repair the lines so far. The line is expected to be repaired by February.

The total power that Nepal imports from India is, however, not enough to make up the shortfall. At present, 60 MW power is being imported from India’s Tanakpur and other places. There is a possibility of importing an additional of 60 MW from India’s Kataiya-Duhabi and Tanakpur’s 50 MVA 220/132 Power Transformer (40 MW and 20 MW, respectively). Although talks with India are being held, the deal has not reached a conclusive point.

The cabinet of the communist-led government has declared a national power emergency which is expected to last up to five years. A decade long communist insurgency that ended in 2006 hampered development work in Nepal, including the building of new power plants. Although the rebels gave up their armed revolt and joined the political mainstream, political instability has continued. Politics, corruption, and instability strangled the growth of hydro-power sector, which could transform the economy of one of the poorest nations in Asia.

Although NEA had ensured that the load-shedding hours won’t increase to more than five hours per day, the country is facing the blackout of 16-hr daily power cut since January 12, the nation’s worst ever energy crisis, after enduring a 12-hour power outage daily. The energy crisis is starting to have all-round effects from common consumers to business enterprises; the lack of energy has triggered a cascading impact everywhere. Nepal is estimated to suffer a loss of about Rs 45. billion ($700 million) due to the power crisis that has caused dozens of industries to close. Several initiatives are being designed to curb the calamity. The government says it would give a seven-year tax exemption to private companies producing hydroelectric power by 2012. A New Energy Act and Nepal Electricity Regulatory Commission Act will also be endorsed. It will also import electricity from India and install diesel-run generators in the next two months to generate 200 MW of electricity to cope with the immediate shortages. However, energy experts have pointed out that the cost of power generated by such plants would be astronomically high. With Nepal’s kickback and corruption, the addition is likely to create another economic crisis.

The government is also looking for alternative means to minimize the load-shedding as the crippling hours of outage continue to hit industrial production and makes things difficult for households. Industrial areas and corridors have been promised and uninterrupted power supply. In order to support the operation of industries in the country, the government has decided to provide electricity to industrial estates including Balaju, Pokhara, Bhairahawa, Butwal, Dharan, and Biratnagar among others through separate feeders. All industrial estates under the government will be supplied electricity regularly for five days while the remaining two days of the week will be totally without electricity.

However, at a time, when the problem of load-shedding has been detrimental to every sector, government’s decision to support one sector is sure to leave the other sectors thwarted. For instance, the television channels have already stopped their telecast for five hours daily in protest, and the radio stations are worried as well. They are demanding a separate feeder for themselves. A solution to this sadistic hitch, therefore, needs to be found soon.

In the short term, the most obvious strategies are minimal use of electrical heaters/air conditioners, installation of occupancy censors in organizations, management of energy audit, use of load limiter where necessary, use of solar heaters instead of electronic geysers, discourage the use of inverters, use of alternative energy, controlling power leakage, and encouraging use of captive generation, especially use of generator run on furnace oil instead of diesel. Several sops are also being mooted to boost alternative forms of energy. It has been suggested that, in order to promote the use of alternative energy, households using it should be given tax rebate and interest-free loan.

A proper study is necessary to understand the kind of support needed by power projects under construction so that they can be completed on time. Conducive environment for completion of such projects should be created accordingly. There should also be an additional investment in transmission infrastructure since an absence of such infrastructure has caused the problem of power evacuation.

The committee also suggests that there should be a single window policy in order to make the legal process involved in construction process fast and efficient. Construction of High Voltage Inter-Country Transmission Line is also needed to exchange power with India. At present, there is a current system loss of 25%. Efforts should be made to reduce such loss to 19% at the end of 6 years. The committee, in its report, also suggests establishment of storage power house in each development region which will help in power consumption even in times of dry winter. Similarly, power consumption capacity from one region to another should be developed so that if generation in one region is scant; power could be imported from other region.

Sher Singh Bhat, Director of NEA’s System Operations Department has assured that the 16-hours power outrage is the climax of load-shedding for the winter. Well, NEA has been since long breaking its promises. All we can do is to wait and expect them to live up to their pledge once and for all, and hope that the next schedule that NEA issues is the one with shrinking period of power outage for a change, rather than the one with mounting hours of darkness.

- Photography by Shreyans Tamang, Creative Director, V.E.N.T! Magazine