436 tons of waste is generated everyday in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. This can generate about 184 MW electricity everyday. Definitely the conversion technology with cleaning mechanism is costly but the cost needs to be looked at the waste management perspective and also the cost of electricity generation. New heat intense processing industrial area can be developed near by such location. This, to some extent, will also lead our metro cities towards a sustainable development.

Nepal is going through severe power shortage at present. This is having a huge cumulative effect on the economic growth of the country itself.The government of Nepal has declared state of emergency in the power sector and has admitted the bitter truth of being unsuccessful to meet the growing power demand. The present alarming situation is not a result of our actions and plans of last few months but it is an accumulation of problems, short-sightedness, political intervention in Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) and “water politics” in the past. As a result, we have always lacked in terms of long-term plan to cope with the increasing demand of electricity. We have lagged even behind other underdeveloped countries in the supply side option. Moreover, it is not possible to produce the deficit power in the coming few months.

It is so surprising as well as embarrassing to hear the experts who were in responsible positions in the past and now opposing the policy of past and present government. But we should realise this nightmare is not only because of the politicians. The experts and planners who were advisors and guiding the politicians should also take moral responsibility.

The peak energy demand in 1998 was 317 MW which was more than double (722 MW) in 2008. However, the current production capacity is 617 MW including NEA and Independent Power Producers efforts. So even in wet season, it is not possible to meet the demand even when the power plants operate in full capacity. Government should now come up with a detail programme to sort out the problem. Definitely the power crisis need to be seen in a larger perspective, requiring short term, mid term and long term solutions.

Short Terms Measures
The energy issue is related with demand side. The residential sector has large contribution (42%) during the peak hours. So, strong demand management programmes in residential sector can sharply reduce the peak load. Replacement of incandescent light by Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) in a mass scale in the household, and promotion of energy efficient home appliances could be effective measures to reduce demands.

The life of CFL are normally longer than that of filament lamps while its use also substantially reduces the electricity bill but they are susceptible with the voltage and frequency variation and therefore question of maintaining standard voltage and frequency in the consumer end is another big challenge to NEA. As the cost of average CFL is ten times higher than incandescent lamps consumers may be reluctant to quickly shift to these lamps if we are not able to assure the quality of the electricity. So maintaining quality of electricity is must to enforce successful CFL programme.

Electricity is a commodity; the pricing needs to vary with the demand. So, there should also be time of day tariff in urban residential sector. This will encourage people to shift their possible load in off peak hours. If above mentioned two points are implemented properly, the peak load could be reduced by at least 10% to 20%. For this, there should be an integrated effort from NEA, consumer associations and the private sector.

Mid Term Measures: Diesel plants or Energy from Waste
The government had come up with the proposal of installing 200 MWh diesel power plants for immediate solution to the load shedding, which could be a mid term solution. The question is if we have done the feasibility study to identify such locations which could prove best for locating diesel plant considering the transmission losses, local environment etc. There is also doubt on the reliable supply from diesel plants as people have bitter experience of keeping themselves in queue for hours to get few liters of petrol and diesel in the gasoline stations. The installation cost of a diesel power plant is fairly low and also has shorter installation time than hydro but it will be another challenge to compete with its high generation cost and to cope with price dependency on imported fuel. NEA has proposed additional government subsidy to meet the extra per unit cost of generation which is not a realistic plan and solution at all. More in depth exercise is needed before its implementation.

Waste management has always been a big problem in major cities especially the capital Kathmandu. An integrated solution for two different problems could be generate energy from waste. A typical plant with a daily waste input of 830 tons of garbage and 50 MWh of energy generates 400 MWh electricity and 960 tons of steam (thermal power) and 28 tons of ash, which is hardly 3% of the total weight of the garbage which would otherwise has to be dumped in the dumping site.

436 tons of waste is generated everyday in Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. This can generate about 184 MW electricity everyday. Definitely the conversion technology with cleaning mechanism is costly but the cost needs to be looked at the waste management perspective and also the cost of electricity generation. New heat intense processing industrial area can be developed near by such location. This, to some extent, will also lead our metro cities towards a sustainable development.

Long-term Strategy
Without doubt, our long term strategy needs to focus on hydropower. If we look at the NEA’s annual report, 12.8 Gigawatts has been in plan and proposed power development schemes including ambitious schemes like Pancheswor of 6.5 GW, Karnali Chisapani of 1.1 GW, since quite a long time. Time has come to critically review our power development policy and strategy and the reasons why we have not been successful in hydropower development. Every large hydropower scheme plan has been politicised. We should now be able to move ahead with national consensus in hydropower development.

We should also be able to foresee power surplus situation once large schemes are harnessed. Our strategies in no case depend on India as a single client. So we should advocate for SAARC regional pool concept. We must create an environment to sell our electricity in a free market pool. So that we wont have the “power excess” problem in future.

(Mainali is a researcher at Energy and Climate Studies Division in Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Email: brijesh.mainali@energy.kth.se )

Source : NEPALNEWS.COM