KATHMANDU, AUGUST 10

Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has projected that its annual profit in the fiscal year 2021-22 soared by more than 164 per cent.

The authority, which made a net profit of Rs 6.10 billion in the fiscal year 2020-21, has projected its gross profit to reach Rs 16.09 billion in the last fiscal year, which ended in mid-July.

Kulman Ghising, executive director of NEA, shared that the annual income exceeded Rs one billion. With this, the authority has become the forerunner in terms of earning and profit-making among the public institutions.

The authority has been continuously making profits after fiscal year 2015-16 when it had incurred loss amounting to Rs 8.89 billion.

'As energy consumption increased by 27 per cent, sales income increased, electricity exports increased, and we managed to increase production by about 16 per cent from power plants owned by the NEA. Electricity leakage was minimised, expenses were effectively controlled, other income increased, due to which the authority has increased its profit,' said Ghising.

Electricity leakage

Through the campaign conducted to control technical and non-technical leakages, NEA has reduced electricity leakage to 15.38 per cent.

In the year 2015-16, there was a leakage of 25.78 per cent in the electricity system. The leakage had been brought down to 15.25 per cent in the year 2019-20, but it edged up to 17.18 per cent in the fiscal year 2020-21.

In the fiscal year 2021-22, the steps taken to control the leakages were made more systematic and effective, and the leakages were reduced by 1.80 percentage points to 15.38 per cent compared to the previous year.

Exports up

In the fiscal year 2021-22, electricity exports to India increased while imports decreased.

Currently, about 364 MW to 400 MW of excess electricity generated in Nepal is being exported to India on a daily basis.

In the year 2020-21, 40.4 million units of electricity were exported, while 49.3 million units were exported in 2021-22.

The authority earned Rs 3.38 billion from electricity export despite an increase in domestic consumption by 21.28 per cent during the review year.

Stating that net import will be brought to an end and net export will begin from the current fiscal, Ghising said that the peak demand for electricity has reached 1,747 MW as the number of customers using electricity has reached 5.3 million.

A version of this article appears in the print on August 11, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.