Kathmandu, November 3:

The proposed 14-megawatt Kulekhani III hydropower project is a rare example of pro-activeness and indigenisation that eyes to provide quality electricity to people of Nepal, economically.

After a decade of dithering over the size of the power project and fishing for resources outside the country, Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) and the government of Nepal have decided to pool in their resources to plan and execute the project on their own. Giving details about the project, Shyam Sundar Shrestha, project chief, Kulekhani III hydropower project, said that NEA is going to finance 75 per cent of the proposed cost of Rs 2.3 billion, while the rest is being provided by the government.

All the work is going to be executed by the planners and engineers of the ‘project development department’ of the government.

This completely indigenous power project is going to produce electricity at a lowly Rs 5.30 per unit cost while other similar projects, which had external inputs, continue to cost around Rs 6 per unit of electricity, and that too, to be paid in terms of dollars.

The project is also important from the point of the view of meeting the short supply of electricity during the dry winter months when diesel power plants need to be operated to meet the power shortage.

“Per unit of electricity costs about Rs 30 when diesel is used to generate it,” informed Shrestha.

Currently Nepal produces about 67 megawatt of electricity by burning this precious fossil fuel. The Kulekhani III project will help reduce the dependence on such costly and unhealthy use of energy sources.

Being a ‘peaking power station’, it will help cope up with the excessive load factor experienced in the national power grid around the evening time, according to Shrestha.

This is also likely to stabilise voltage and current flow during this critical time of the day, improving the quality of electricity in the entire network.

Located at Sanotar VDC near Hetauda, this cascade project will use run off water from Kulekhani I and Kulekhani II project, making it all the more environment-friendly and cost-effective.

Shrestha played down fears over the impact of the project on the environment and population in the vicinity of the project area. “It will only take up about 25 hectares of land. Only a few houses need to be relocated — a process that has already been started following amicable agreements with locals of the area,” said Shrestha.

Work on the needed bridges and access road has already begun. The tendering process for the main civil work on the project is likely to be completed with the next three months. “If all goes well, we look forward to complete the project within two years,” informed Shrestha.