Nepal's electricity consumption reaches highest during Deepavali

Kathmandu, Oct 25 (PTI) Nepal's electricity consumption reached the highest level at about 1,700 MW during Laxmi Puja -- the first day of the five day festival of light Deepavali.

More than 1,300 MW of electricity was consumed domestically during the Laxmi Puja on Monday and 385 MW was exported to India, according to Pradeep Thike, the Deputy Managing Director of Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).

This year too people in Kathmandu celebrated Deepavali by illuminating their houses with colourful lights.

Nepal started celebrating the festival of light in its real sense in 2016 when the load shedding of electricity ended as power produced within the country became surplus.

Prior to this, Nepal was witnessing up to 16 hours of load shedding mainly due to mismanagement of electricity and shortage of power.

This year, the consumption of electricity during Tihar, or the festival of light, increased by 100 MW. The maximum electricity consumption during Tihar last year was around 1,200 MW.

Nepal is currently witnessing a surplus of electricity and exporting power to India since June. The Himalayan nation is exporting 385 MW of electricity to India.

Nepal has so far earned more than Rs. 8 billion in the past five months.

The earnings by the end of November will touch the Rs. 10 billion mark, according to the NEA.

Even now, NEA is facing a wastage of 200 MW of electricity on a daily basis due to the surplus of power.

However, the wastage would be reduced from Wednesday onwards as the NEA is going to shut down the 456 MW Tamakoshi Hydropower Project for maintenance, informed Thike. PTI SBP PY PY PY