Kathmandu, April 5:

At a time when the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) is becoming less reliable for supply of electricity to people, experts have started talking about need for diesel power plants as an alternative, as Nepal always faces power shortages during the dry season, resulting in excessive load-shedding.

Kush K Joshi, vice-president of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), speaking at a programme on ‘Decentralised Diesel Generation’, said that on the one hand the business and industry sectors are hard hit by insurgency for over eight years, and on the other, power shortage has been another bottleneck for industries. Crisis in the industrial sector can be managed if we could move towards diesel plants in electricity generation, said Joshi.

Joshi said that there are various factors including power cuts and insurgency for the dismal scenario in the business sector in Nepal in recent years.

Presenting a paper on ‘Decentralised Diesel Generation’, Arne Winther Anderson, an expert at DANIDA said that industries should invest to build their own power generation capacity as NEA is not a reliable source of electricity and it is not foreseen that the situation will improve during the coming six years. Industries have to secure a back-up electricity supply, either on individual basis or on cooperate basis as an example in industrial area.

Anderson showed concerns that unless NEA is able to produce and supply electricity during the day time, it would not be useful for industries as they normally operate in a day time. Under a normal situation, NEA may deliver electricity during the daytime and diesel plants can operate during domestic peak hours and operations could even be round the clock. The plants could as well act as back-up power supply sources for the industry, he hoped.

Investment in diesel plants will allow availability of back-up or full time power supply to industries and provide reliability in production, delivery of peak power supply to NEA and delivery of process heating for the industry, he says. He claimed that diesel plants have 95 per cent reliability in electricity supply.

Other businesspersons also showed serious concerns on load-shedding by NEA that has hit normal life, business sector’s performance and day-to-day activities.