Question

What is the electricity production potentiality of nepal

Answer 1

Nepal has huge potentiality of producing electricity. Nepal alone has about 6,000 big and small rivers. Being a mountainous country it is drained by many snow-fed swift flowing rivers. The rivers like Koshi, Gandaki, Karnali, Rapti, Bheri, Mahakali, etc have great potentiality of producing hydro-electricity.

If we could harness the potential water resources to produce hydro-electricity, there is no doubt that Nepal’s economy will definitely rise. Many places of Nepal, especially, the remote and rural areas are still in darkness. Wherever, the hydro-electricity is not possible, other resources to generate electricity must be utilized.

The bio-gas plant has become very popular among the villagers in rural areas especially for domestic use. Wind power has been utilized in Kagbeni (Mustand) to generate electricity. In urban area people use solar energy for solar heaters. Besides water, other sources of energy are not enough to run the industries and factories. In order to develop Nepal, hydro-power is the most reliable source of energy.

Hydro-power was generated for the fist time in Nepal in 1965 BS during the time of Chandra Shumsher. It had the capacity of 500 KW and was located near Pharping, south of Kathmandu. The second hydro-power station was established during the time of Juddha Shumsher at Sundarijal in the north of Kathmandu, having the capacity of 640 KW.

Nepal has the potentiality of producing 83000 MW of hydro-electricity. But, only 390 MW of electricity has been generated so far from 50 big and small electricity generating projects by the year 2057 BS.