KATHMANDU, April 9 - Fed up with extended load-shedding hours? Don’t lose hope, for  there’s a ray of hope for the power-starved denizens of Kathmandu Valley.

A team of Swiss experts and Nepali engineers are teaming up and conducting a feasibility study to generate electricity from sunlight and connect it to the national grid. Since last January, the team has been carrying on work to set up a Photovoltaic (PV) cell system to do this.

The PV cell system consists of photovoltaic cells, PV modules and an inverter wired together, where photovoltaic cells convert sunlight into direct current (DC) electricity.

“India, China and many European countries are using this system as one of the major renewable energy sources,” said Prof. Jagan Nath Shrestha, Director of Center for Energy Studies (CES) under Tribhuvan University (TU).

Shrestha said the PV system can prove to be the best alternative renewable energy source for the country.

“We can generate five kilowatt per hour from the sun’s rays while most European countries can generate only three kilowatt per hour.

Despite this, most  European countries, including Switzerland and Germany, are using this system to generate electricity,” he said.

It costs Rs. 500, 000 to set up a PV cell system and generate one kilowatt electricity. Once the PV cell is installed, it works for 20 years, according to Shrestha.

CES had installed the PV cell system in 2003 at some places on a test basis and it has been operating round the clock, said Shrestha.

In the initial phase, the PV cell system would be installed in Kathmandu Valley as a pilot project, according to Domenico Chianese, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Applied Sustainability of the Environment, Switzerland.

Kathmandu Valley has transmission lines with 220 KV capacity and that will help transmit the power generated from the PV cell system that will be fed into the national grid, he said.

Meanwhile, he suggested that when real estate business and big building projects are booming so fast, power demand will naturally increase.

He added that the PV cell system would be an appropriate option for the valley denizens to get regular power supply. 

Demand for PV cell system is growing by 40 percent every year worldwide, according to him.