Kathmandu: The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has started the export of surplus electricity to India.
The current peak demand for electricity in the country is 1,643 megawatts.
According to NEA Executive Director Kulman Ghising, two hydropower projects based in Nuwakot have been supplying 39 megawatts of electricity to India since Wednesday midnight. The projects had supplied power to India last year too.
Currently, the water level in Nepal’s rivers has significantly increased and it was due to rainfall.
As the NEA said, the projects supplying the surplus production to India are the 24 MW Trishuli Hydropower and the 15 MW Devighat Project.
The state-owned power authority in May had called for tenders seeking proposals from Indian companies for the sale of 200 MW of electricity generated from hydropower projects in Nepal for five months.
India had recently allowed Nepal to sell an additional 325 megawatts of electricity in the Indian market. During a recent visit by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to India, the southern neighbor had turned positive on the export of surplus electricity.
The total power production in Nepal at the time is 2,300 MW and some projects are likely to come into operation by the end of the current fiscal year.
According to NEA Spokesperson, in the competitive energy exchange market of India, Nepal exports and imports electricity on the basis of blocks that are fixed every 15 minutes. The price of each block also varies based on the demand.
Now demand for electricity is excessively high in India following a significant temperature rise there and the ceiling price of the purchase and sale of electricity is IRs 12 (Rs 19.20) per unit.
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