Call to synchronise grids of Nepal, India for power trade

Kathmandu, Dec. 1

Jeebach Mandal, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Energy, said Friday that inability to synchronise the power grids was the major barrier in importing and exporting power between Nepal and India.

“The grids of Nepal and India are operating independently. Nepal has 12 isolated grids, which do not synchronise with each other and with India as well,” he said while speaking at a roundtable discussion on ‘Regional co-operation for power trade: Nepal-India Perspective’, organised by multiple development partners.

He also said that although there had been many studies on Nepal’s potential energy production, a study on grid synchronisation had not been conducted so far.

Indian Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri said that only large-scale electricity projects would bring significant changes in the region, therefore Nepal needed to realise such projects to meet the growing demand and generate surplus energy.

“Meanwhile, as other renewable sources of energy are getting cheaper in the recent years, we should also focus on solar and wind energy,” he said.

Executive Director of Integrated Research for Action and Development, New Delhi Jyoti K Parikh said that it was important for the region to get interconnected so that countries could easily trade energy across the border.

She urged the countries to set aside politics and cooperate to help develop the infrastructure necessary for connectivity.

Likewise, Acting Mission Director of USAID Amy Tohill-Stull said that the energy sector was a critical issue in entire South Asia.

“Although South Asia is home to nearly one fourth of the world’s population of about 1.8 billion people, it consumes 75 per cent less energy than the global average,” she said.

According to her, rapid economic growth, industrialisation, increasing population, accelerating urbanisation can drive significant growth in the region’s demand for electricity, and policymakers of the region are working to address these challenges.

She pledged the support of her government to regional energy integration of South East Asia and Central Asia to South Asia, and enhance the physical infrastructure for physical and digital connectivity.