NEA earns Rs. 1.72 bn from electricity export

By Laxman Kafle Kathmandu, July 2: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) exported 178.19 million units of electricity at competitive rates to the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) market and earned Rs. 1.72 billion in June.

The NEA has started selling the surplus electricity during the rainy season to the IEX market from June 2 this year. Initially, 39 MW of electricity from two hydropower plants was sold in the IEX market. But since June 10, the NEA started selling 364 MW of electricity daily at a competitive rate to the Indian market, according to NEA.

The NEA has received an approval from the Central Electricity Authority under the Ministry of Power of India to sell 364 MW of electricity generated from six hydropower projects in the IEX market a day.

The NEA has earned Rs. 1.72 billion by deducting all charges from the electricity sold to India. The average rate of electricity sold in the competitive market in June was Rs 9.67 per unit. In the IEX, 24 hours are divided into 96 blocks of 15 minutes each and electricity is traded at a competitive rate set by the market. Price of each block may differ.

The NEA received the highest average rate for the electricity it sold on June 15 when it sold the power at Rs. 15.93 per unit. Likewise, the lowest average rate was on June 21 when it dropped to Rs. 4.92 per unit, said the NEA.

On June 3, the NEA sold the lowest amount of electricity worth only Rs. 5.667 million and on June 14, the NEA exported power worth Rs. 72.8 million.

NEA to export electricity worth Rs. 20 billion in coming fiscal year

Managing Director of NEA Kul Man Ghising said that electricity trade in the Indian competitive market has been more encouraging from this fiscal year.

 “Looking at the amount of electricity exported in a month and the price obtained from it, the electricity trade with India has been seen more effective. This will help reduce some of Nepal’s trade deficit with India and contribute to maintaining the country’s balance of payments,” he said.

 He said that the export of electricity is projected to be around Rs. 5 billion in the current fiscal year and around Rs. 20 billion in the coming fiscal year.

He said that electricity trade with India would help in the development of the hydropower sector in Nepal.

Ghising said that the first priority is to consume electricity within the country and for that the state needs to increase investment in the infrastructure of transmission and distribution systems.

“There have been complaints from the industrial customers that reliable and quality electricity is not available because of occasional line tripping due to voltage. In order to solve these problems which are common in the rainy season, the country has been running a campaign to improve, expand and upgrade the transmission and distribution system structures, the results of which will be seen gradually,” he said.

During Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s visit to India in April this year, a joint vision paper on cooperation between Nepal and India in the field of energy was issued. After that the NEA had received approval to export electricity generated from four more hydropower plants to India.