Micro project powers small villages in Nepal

Many small villages have a steadier electrical supply than Nepali cities, thanks to locally operated projects supported by international aid agencies.

By Surath Giri for Khabar South Asia in Kathmandu

June 14, 2012
 
For nearly a decade, Nepal's power output has fallen short of demand. The resulting power cuts, known as load-shedding, start at two hours a day in the rainy season.

But while Nepali cities reel from the shortages, the nearly 3,000 residents of the remote village of Gotikhel enjoy around-the-clock electricity thanks to a micro hydropower system which locals operate themselves.

Founded by Keshab Ghimire 20 years ago, the 20kw Mahankal Ghatte Micro Hydropower Project in the southernmost Lalitpur district has been lighting up 172 households in the village.

"Realising that to wait for the electricity from the government would be a long wait, I started this hydropower with a loan from the Agricultural Development Bank and technical assistance from SNV [the Netherlands Development Organisation in Nepal]", Ghimire told Khabar South Asia.

"Although government transmission lines have recently arrived in our village, we are yet to get any electricity from it. For now, our micro hydropower is our primary source of energy," he said.

Though Nepal is bestowed with immense hydropower generation potential, less than 50% of its population has access to electricity

Rural communities have responded by constructing and operating their own micro hydropower projects. Such projects, generating less than 1MW of electricity, are proliferating throughout Nepal, overseen by rural communities and international aid agencies.

As of April, the country's eastern region had 40 micro hydroelectricity projects generating 913KW of electricity and benefiting more than 8,300 rural households, constructed by rural communities with government and aid agency assistance.

Purna N. Ranjitkar, executive director of the Nepal Micro Hydropower Development Association, believes micro hydropower projects are the most practical way to provide electricity to rural areas.

"Both cost-wise and technology wise, it is next to impossible to reach every part of Nepal with transmission lines," Ranjitkar told Khabar. "Micro hydropower projects hence have become a viable way of providing electricity to every corner and region of the country."

An estimated 2,500 micro hydropower projects operate across Nepal, providing about 23MW of electricity. This is a significant amount when compared to Nepal's total electricity output, which stands at 652MW. Such projects rely predominantly on locally-produced technologies and have been a good source of income and employment for rural communities.

"These projects, once constructed, can be solely operated and maintained by villagers," Ranjitkar said.

Ghimire said: "We are planning to link our hydropower to recently-arrived transmission lines of the national grid and generate some income for our community by selling the excess electricity. I hope it will help solve the load-shedding problem to some extent."