Heavy power cuts to stay

KATHMANDU, Feb 18: If you are expecting any significant reduction in the current heavy load-shedding within the next few days, you will be disappointed. [break]

"Situation is changing against our expectations and it is turning from bad to worse," Sher Singh Bhat, director, system operation at Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) told myrepublica.com.

Senior officials had earlier said the current load-shedding hours would be almost halved once the electricity towers in Sunsari toppled by Koshi floods in August last year are restored. The government expected to import 90 MW of electricity from India after the restoration of the towers.

"We may not be able to cut load-shedding hours under the present circumstances."

- Sher Singh Bhatt, NEA

Work on restoring the towers is at the final stage but Nepal cannot import more than 60 MW. "We are expecting to import electricity within a week but we will be importing about 50 to 60 MW, because Indian side has restored only one of the two circuits of its transmission line across the border," he said. Both the circuits need to be restored for supplying 90 MW. He described the new development as unexpected.

"People should be more than happy, if we are able to decrease the load-shedding by even one or two hours after power import from India," he added.

The 36-MW Bhotekoshi Hydroelectric Project, which was currently generating 14 MW, remains shut for the past two weeks due to technical problems.

According to Bhat, water levels in the river feeding various hydro projects have rapidly receded lately to the shock of NEA engineers. All the hydroelectric projects in the country, except Kulekhani, are built in run-of-the-river model.

"We have lost about 50 MW due to the aforementioned problems. So we may not be able to cut load-shedding hours under the present circumstances," Bhat added.

On top of that, recently the NEA has been operating the only storage-type Kulekhani project in its full capacity. This way officials say the reservoir could run dry so they must stop power generation from the plant will have to stop completely in the next 20-25 days, he said.

"We may have to stop Kulekhani for some time once we resume importing power from India," he said. Water level in Kulekhani reservoir has remained at a record low this year.

More power cuts than notified

Following the closure of Bhotekoshi, NEA has cut power for about one hour more per day than the current load shedding schedule.

The current schedule was announced on January 23. Currently the NEA has imposed 96 hours power cut per week that works out at 14 hours a day.

"We have not informed the people about the additional power cut because we have to reschedule it again once we resume import from India within a week," he clarified.