Nepal has earned an income of 10.39 billion rupees from electricity export.

According to the latest information, the mentioned income was obtained from the export of electricity in the first five and a half months of this year. Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has exported 1.27 billion units of electricity that was consumed in the country. This is the details as of mid-November.

The authority had started selling the excess monsoon electricity consumed within the country through competition in the day-ahead market of Indian Energy Exchange Limited (IX) from June 2.

As the electricity trade with India is done in Indian currency, during this period 6.49 billion Indian currency has been brought into Nepal from the sale of electricity. This is contributing to Nepal's foreign exchange reserves and reducing the trade deficit between the two countries.

Initially, 39 megawatts of electricity produced by the two power plants was considered as a source and was sold to IX on a daily basis. Since June 10, 364 megawatts of electricity produced by six hydropower plants were being sold daily in the Indian market at a competitive rate. With the start of electricity export from Chilime and Solukhola from November 4 and November 16 respectively, the approved capacity of electricity exported to India has reached 409 megawatts.

Kulman Ghising, the managing director of the authority said that the amount of export is gradually decreasing along with the reduction of electricity production from hydropower plants based on river flow due to the decrease in water flow in the canals.

"Industries are currently not taking electricity according to the approved load, due to which the demand for electricity in the industrial corridors in the country is not increasing. At present, it is estimated that the electricity that is more than domestic consumption can be exported by the first week of next month," he said.

In IX, 24 hours are divided into 96 blocks of 15 and 15 minutes and electricity is traded at a competitive rate set by the market. Therefore, the price of each block is different. The average rate of electricity exported by the authority till mid-November is Rs 8.23 per unit.