Either industries or the general public to bear the brunt during peak hours during this winter

Nepal is likely to face power outages at least for a few hours on a daily basis due to a shortfall in the supply of electricity during this winter. Either the industrial sector or the general public will have to bear the brunt of this shortfall during peak hours this winter season.

Senior officials at Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) said they will have a shortfall of at least 200 megawatts (MW) of electricity during this winter as two major hydropower projects–456 MW Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower and 144 MW Kaligandaki Hydropower Project– are yet to begin full-fledged power generation. Both of these hydropower projects suffered severe damage during the late September disaster incidents triggered by incessant rainfall.

Spokesperson for the NEA, Chandan Kumar Ghosh, informed Republica that India has committed to supply only 75 MW of the 200 MW of electricity requested by the NEA, citing shortage in power generation of their own.

“The power supply in India, like in Nepal, is largely dependent on hydropower generation and the water flow in the rivers recede during winters,” he said, “Therefore, India could only commit to supply 75 MW of power to Nepal during this winter even when we offered them a high price of INR 10 (Rs 16) per unit of power.” NEA purchases power from domestic hydropower projects at the rate of Rs 8.4 per unit during winter and Rs 4.8 per unit during summer.

Speaking at a program in the capital on Friday, Managing Director of NEA Kulman Ghising claimed that the two hydropower projects will come into full fledged operation in 10 days. However, officials at the NEA doubt that the projects will resume full fledged operation within the timeframe.

“Since the damage to the infrastructure is significant, it seems unlikely that both the projects will resume full-fledged operation,” an official at the NEA informed Republica. “If they are to resume partial operation, we will still face a shortage of power supply.”

With the shortage in power supply, NEA faces the dilemma of cutting the power supply to either the general public or the industries during peak consumption hours (5 pm to 7 pm). Currently, NEA has curbed power supply to industries during the peak hours and industrialists have already started complaining against the short supply.

NEA’s Managing Director Ghising even suggested on Friday that the industrialists affected by the power outage started baseless rumors that NEA will announce load shedding in the near future.

Officials from the NEA have suggested that the industries, rather than the general public, will likely face the brunt of the shortage in power supply, mainly due to their own production cycle and power demand.

Ghosh echoed Ghising’s claim on Friday that it would be justified that the industries which tend to default on arrears of their electricity dues would have to face the power shortage instead of the general public.

“On one hand we have the general public that pays around Rs 11 per unit consumed and make regular payments, while on the other hand we have industries that pay Rs 4.75 per unit power consumed and fail to make regular payments,” Ghosh told Republica, “In this situation, it would make sense to let the consumers with arrears face the brunt of shortage in supply.”

Spokesperson Ghosh claimed that the industrialists need to focus on production during the summer when power supply is plentiful and start considering electricity as a raw material only available easily during the summer season.

“One of the problems of the industrial sector is that they increase production during winter when other raw materials are easily available,” Ghosh told Republica, “In doing so, they take power supply as granted and do not consider electricity as a raw material with limited supply.”

Ghosh added that increasing the tariff of the power consumption during the winter and decreasing it during summer might incentivize industries to divert their production focus away from winter. “At the policy level, if we increase the tariff by a few rupees during winter and reduce it during summer, the industries will be incentivized to increase production during summer,” Ghosh said.

By Biken K Dawadi