Book Review (Spotlight Weekly)]

Power Potency

A book on the experiences of a small hydropower plant shows the way to providing cheaper energy to rural and remote parts of the country

By KESHAB POUDEL

Endowed with abundant water resources, Nepal has a huge potential to generate electricity. But only a small segment of water is being used to produce electricity, which is among the most expensive in the world. The history of hydropower development in Nepal is a century old, the first 100 kW station being established near Kathmandu during the Rana regime. The pace of development after that has been slow. Barely 15 percent of the population has access to electricity. Those who do face frequent outages.

Although Nepal has taken some steps to construct power plants, electricity is still a scarce commodity. Most of the consumers live in urban areas; only four percent of the rural population has access to electricity.

At a time when policymakers and government agencies are trying to expand electricity supply through various schemes, Eco-Himal has come out with a timely book based on its experiences in the Thame small hydropower project. According to the introductory overview written by Bikash Pandey, director of Repson Nepal, Winrock International, small hydropower projects have an important role to play in providing electricity services to rural Nepalese mountain communities. Each year 30,000 new families are linked to the national electricity grid by the Nepal Electricity Authority, the government-owned national utility. Most of these households are in the vicinity of urban centers or along highways. However, this rate of electrification is insufficient to even supply the increase in population, which is in the range of 80,000 households each year. This means that there are more people in the country without electricity at the end of the each year than at the beginning.

Accelerating the electrification process in a country like Nepal is not easy task, as it requires a huge investment and extensive technological expertise. The expansion of the electricity grid in the mountain terrain is another challenging job. However, the Thame project shows a way of providing reliable electricity in the remote mountain areas with small investment. Located within the Sagarmatha National Park in the Mount Everest region, which forms the northern part of the Solu-Khumbu district in eastern Nepal, the 620kW Thame project is the first of its kind built with the cooperation of the Austrian government.

Eco-Himal, an Austrian-based non-government organization, took over full responsibility of the technical and financial management of the power plant, including the final phase of the construction and the training of a local Sherpa team.

In his article "Small Hydropower Plant Thame-Namche Bazar", Dieter Rachbauer discusses the cost, benefits and technical aspects of the project. The book, among other things, also deals with historical accounts, including the challenges faced during construction, technical features of the project, social-economic factors and commentary from Khumbu. The article on project design and technical experiences explains the challenges of the project. Thame's experiences have shown that small hydropower project is the best way of providing energy in rural Nepal.

Energy from the Top of the World
Small Hydropower Plant Thame-Namche Bazaar
Edited By Dieter Rachbauer
Published by Eco Himal, Hofhaymer Alee
Pages: 60