Nepal's hydropower surplus is real, and so is the problem of selling it

A decade ago load-shedding was a daily fact. Today the utility reports surplus generation through the monsoon months and has begun selling power across the border. (‘A Year in’)

The surplus is seasonal: run-of-river plants produce most when the rivers are high and least in the dry winter, when demand peaks.

Wires and storage

The two answers are cross-border lines big enough to carry the wet-season surplus, and storage, either reservoirs or batteries, to shift it into winter. Both are expensive and both take years. (‘World Energy Outlook’)

Meanwhile the domestic market is being nudged upward: electric cooking, electric vehicles and industrial tariffs that reward using power when it is plentiful.