Friday, November 15, 2019

NEA plans to minimise energy wastage

Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is planning to add new transformers to increase the power consumption. The state power utility has directed the distribution centres across the country to upgrade their transformers to maintain the electrical load to 50 per cent to let the consumers use as much electricity.
Speaking at a performance agreement ceremony held today with NEA’s Province 3 division, the NEA executive director Kulman Ghising said that it has become challenging to utilise the generated electricity and not let the produced power to go into waste.
He said that the NEA is gearing up to encourage people to use induction stoves instead of LPG gas for cooking and electric vehicles. “NEA is also preparing to establish charging stations for electric vehicles,” he said, directing all the chiefs of electricity distribution centres to upgrade their distribution systems to ensure smooth supply of electricity to the public.
The authority, currently, has been using 50, 100, 200, 300 and 500 kVA transformers to distribute electricity. In the last three years, it has added around 10,000 transformers across the country, increasing its distribution capacity by 1,000 megawatts (MW), according to a press note issued by the power utility. “The authority has added distribution substations with the capacity of 765 MVA to the system by either building a new one or upgrading in three years.”
The NEA has projected that 1,000 MW power will be added to the national grid after the completion of under-construction Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project in the current fiscal year. However, electricity is projected to be generated within a year-and-half can easily fulfill the domestic demand, which has been recorded at a peak of 1,320 MW in the last fiscal year and at 1,089 MW without factoring industries during Tihar festival, not accounting the currently generated quantum of power which would remain a surplus. Likewise, the power utility has already entered into take-or-pay arrangements with private power producers with run-of-river schemes with a combined capacity of around 5000 MW.
The power utility has launched a strategic campaign targeting households – in line with the surplus projections and the government strategic plan – to increase per capita consumption of electricity from 245-kilowatt hours to 400-kilowatt hours by the fiscal year 2021-22.
According to the government target to ensure access to electricity for all Nepalis within three years, the NEA is preparing to fully electrify 40 districts within this fiscal year. “Increasing its consumption is the only way of minimising energy wastage in the country,” the press note reads, adding that the NEA is trying to distribute three phase meter connections to every household and ease electricity supply to the industries to increase electricity consumption in the country.
Meanwhile, NEA has signed performance agreement with provincial office of Province 3 to control electricity leakage, increase revenue collection and improve its services.

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