Kathmandu, March 23
Nepal has failed to import electricity from India as much as it wants in the past few weeks as the electricity prices have been increasing in the southern neighbour.
Owing to the Ukraine crisis, the demand for electricity has gone up in India. As it sells power on a competitive basis, it has been finding buyers ready to pay more than the Nepal Electricity Authority‘s capacity, informs Nepal’s power distribution monopoly.
The authority’s spokesperson Suresh Bahadur Bhattarai says the import has decreased by around 70 per cent of late.
“The electricity prices have gone up there, our bids are being rejected as others buy that power paying high prices.”
Nepal cannot produce sufficient electricity in the dry reason as most of the hydropower projects here are built in the run-of-the-river system that does not produce much power when the water levels are low.
To meet the demand currently, Nepal has to import 12,000-megawatt power per hour from India, Bhattarai says. In lack of that, the authority has begun reducing the amount of electricity supplied to factories.
