Darkness beneath Everest

Nepali policymakers and leaders must wake up from their slumber to solve this mammoth crisis because Nepal has the prime resource needed to generate electricity - water.

By Bhuwan Thapaliya

Electricity has been playing a game of cat and mouse in Nepal. Out of 24 hours, it is on only for 16 hours. Nepalis are forced to live without electricity for 8 hours, six days a week – 48 hours per week. Just imagine yourself living without electricity for such a long time in New York, Seoul, London and Sydney, and then realize how much the Nepalis are suffering. Is Nepal returning towards the Stone Age?

Well, this is Nepal, a nation with huge hydropower potentials (but limited to paper only so far), where electricity supply has been overrun by simple of simplest demand of a meager 720MW peak load demand. This has led the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA ) to ration power (load shedding) to its customers (40% of which don’t have access to electricity) all over Nepal.

Never- ending political uncertainties, Terai unrest, acute fuel shortage, and now this mammoth electricity crisis has stolen smiles from the face of ordinary Nepalis, whose nation had started producing energy from water resources through Pharping hydro power plant much ahead of China. But look at Nepal today and look where China today is terms of energy security.

Fearing the possible future power crisis, China is investing $125 billion in power plants over the next five years and another $130 billion in distribution paths for the power they produce according to the media reports. But China is a big and populous nation, and it needs these massive investments to keep the nation floating, you might argue. Yes, it is, but yet it shows how serious is China about its future power needs. In economics this is called a forward thinking policy.

In the interim, let us turn back to Nepal. The recent load shedding has not sprouted all of a sudden. T here is a shortage of power during winter and the load shedding suggests the need for storage projects as our system is dominated by run-of-the-river projects. The possible occurrence of the load shedding had been forecasted by experts’ years ago, but the government, completely occupied by other complex issues such as the Maoist insurgency and others turned a deaf ear towards these forecasts. They either did not care or did not have the necessary vision and policies to solve the energy problem.

Normal life has been crippled by load shedding. Ordinary people have to make plans according to the electricity schedule, a perfect example of man being the servant of the technology. You want to study but you cannot because there are no lights; refrigerated goods get rotten; in the kitchen the rice cooker is just a show pot and economically speaking, constant blackouts has deteriorated production levels and hampered the country’s economy.

Nepali businesses, enterprises, communications, industries, education and service sectors have been so much hit that overall capacity utilization of the industrial units due to load shedding has come down to about 40-50 percent. This has already crippled the economy which is not a good sign for a nation that is trying hard to sprout out from the vicious circle of poverty.

Meanwhile, we don’t need an expert to tell us that electricity demand is soaring all over the world and there is a narrowing gap between usage in the developing and the emerging world. The reality is right before our eyes. Electricity demand has risen all over the world and it will continue to rise. British Petroleum forecasts electricity demand to double by 2030, and now the Kyoto protocol is encouraging countries to focus on alternative power generation.

Regionally speaking, just imagine how much power is needed to afloat the Chinese – Indian economy? Together China and India are home to 40% of the world’s population. Imagine how much power is needed for every family in China and India, and remember economically, they are growing dramatically. In the year 2007, India’s GDP grew by 8.5% and China’s by 11.4%. These are good signs but also remember that growth means more prosperity and more prosperity means more power consumption.

Hence, considering so, Nepal needs less power than these rising giants. Judging by the GDP growth of our last five years which hovered around an unhealthy average of 2.1%, and given the political crisis, there are every chances of our economy hovering around that average for years to come. Thus, there shall be a slight change in our total winter peak load demand of 720 MW as of today. But Nepal will surely grow in the future and for Nepal to grow, energy security is the ultimate precondition. In the course of time, our economy will definitely creep toward a healthy average of 3.5 – 4%, given that our political uncertainties are solved. Hence, if prompt action is not taken today, then Nepal will suffer from massive power cuts in the future too.

Nepali policymakers and leaders must wake up from their slumber to solve this mammoth crisis because Nepal has the prime resource needed to generate the electricity - water. There is some comfort in the fact that Nepal has more than 6000 rivers and majority of them are capable to turn the turbine and generate electricity. What Nepal needs is capital of which there is a dearth; hence foreign investment is needed. But finding investors is not easy and even if you find one, they may abstain from investing in hydropower because it is costly and time consuming. They have to wait for several years to refill their invested capital and then few years more for profit. And there is this never ending political uncertainty in Nepal followed by our lackluster policy.

It’s not that we are running out of the solutions. We have some reliable and lasting solutions but for this we have to wait. But for how long, no one knows. No ones knows the fate of much publicized and talked about hydro power projects such as West Seti (720 MW), Upper Karnali (300 MW), Arun III (400 MW), Tamakoshi (309 MW), Budhi Gandaki (660 MW), Likhu (125 MW) and Super Marsyangdi (275 MW). 

Let’s play a mind game. If you add these all, then it would lead to 2789 MW. That’s a healthy increase from 634MW or 554 MW (minus 80MW expected from India ) and we can sustain with this increment for at least a decade. But these scenarios are now limited to paper only. No one knows when these projects will be completed as these projects in aggregate require huge investments and time. But unfortunately Nepal doesn’t have both of these privileges.

Furthermore, what makes the future scenario gloomy is the current policy strategy framework. No one knows what the government’s Electricity policy is nor does one know the real motive of the NEA. And the investor’s policies are also debatable on various grounds and the risk - political, social or infrastructural - remains enormous . All this means that load shedding won’t go away any time soon.

(Thapaliya is an Associate Editor of The Global Politican, an online magazine published from New York and can be reached at nepalipoet@yahoo.com)

(Editor’s Note: Nepalis, wherever they live, as well as friends of Nepal around the globe are requested to contribute their views/opinions/recollections etc. on issues concerning present day Nepal to the Guest Column of Nepalnews. Length of the article should not be more than 1,000 words and may be edited for the purpose of clarity and space. Relevant photos as well as photo of the author may also be sent along with the article. Please send your write-ups to editors@mos.com.np)

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