“On Sunday, we will increase load shedding from the current 12 hours to 16 hours a day,” Sher Singh Bhat, director of Systems Operations Department, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), told myrepublica.com. [break]
Bhat said this schedule will apply in most parts of the country including Kathmandu and other major towns – Biratnagar, Pokhara, and Butwal.
As per the new schedule, the NEA will cut power for 16 hours a day for six days a week and 12 hours on one particular day in the week in these areas. Thus, the power outage will be increased to 108 hours a week starting Sunday.
Load-shedding schedule will be locally set in Hetauda-Birgunj area and in some districts in the western parts of the country. Power outage in Hetauda-Birgunj area would be about 84 hours a week (12 hours a day), he said.
In some western districts it could be around 40 hours a week. In western Nepal, the NEA had recently decreased load-shedding duration to 25 hours a week after receiving 20 MW electricity from India.
The 70 MW Middle Marsyangdi hydropower project, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal last month, has failed to generate electricity so far due to technical problems. Bhat said it will take at least two more weeks to bring one of the two units of the project into operation. Operation of another unit will take a couple of weeks more, he said.
Many industrial entities in the country have either cut production or closed down altogether citing acute power shortage in recent days. Nepali television stations that were broadcasting round-the-clock decided on Thursday to cut broadcast time by five hours every day.
The government last month declared national power crisis in the country.
The NEA said it had to increase load-shedding due to receding water levels in the rivers. All the hydro power projects in operation in the country, except Kulekhani, are run-of-the-river projects. Water level in Kulekhani, the only storage-type projects, is at its lowest.
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