VOL. 05,NO. 13,January 13, 2012 (Poush 29, 2068)

By Dr. AB Thapa

People in our country would not have had to go through the present sufferings from the horrifying load-shedding situation had our planners and policy-makers cared to pay due attention to techno-economic aspects in course of planning hydropower projects in recent years. It is still possible to improve substantially the present electric power shortage situation within relatively a very short period perhaps at less than half the investment earmarked by the government for the generation of electric energy in near future if our power development plans are adequately rationalized based on sound engineering practices.

Understanding of Energy Economics

Our electricity planners do not appear to take cognizance of the fact that the electricity price (as well as generation cost) varies not only with the seasons but it also widely varies even within a very short period of just one day. The cost of generation of electricity for the supply of peaking demand in the evening hours can be usually about three times more expensive than that of the off-peak hours. For example, the 10,800 MW Karnali Chisapani hydropower would be generating annually 20,800 GWhr firm peaking energy whereas the much smaller 2,500 MW capacity alternative Karnali Chisapani hydropower could also have generated annually the same amount of 20,800 GWhr firm energy at almost one third the investment of the former if the latter was to be dedicated to meet the demand for the base load instead of peaking. The wide difference in value of energies used for peaking and base load is the prime cause that serves as the basis for the feasibility of pump storage projects, which are built at enormous investment to obtain one unit electricity for peaking purpose by spending two units of electricity generated during the off-peak hours.

Worsening Power Shortage Crisis

At present our country is reeling from acute shortage of electric power. Most of our industries are on the verge of collapse. People are facing great hardship due to long hours of load -shedding. We are now pushed to an extreme desperate situation. It has even started to cross the mind of some of our decision makers that the introduction of diesel power plants on a gigantic scale is the only solution to end the present power shortage crisis. Our planners must bear in mind that diesel power stations might be feasible to supply power to meet the requirements for extremely short duration peaking demand but under no circumstances it would be feasible to meet the demand for base load at a time when the price of petroleum products are skyrocketing.

Nature of Load-shedding

At present during the wet season months quite limited areas are affected by load-shedding lasting only for a very short period in the evening. Even such limited disruption in supply of power might have been to a certain extent the result of transmission lines congestion coupled with the NEA’s power purchase agreements biased in the IPP’s favour. One of the executives of the NEA Keshav Upadhyay has painfully written in the NEA Bulletin dated Falgun 2067 touching on the subject of power tariff “…energy rate of the NEA plants would have further lowered but for stiff conditions in power purchase agreements like take or pay which forces the system operator to shut down NEA owned run-off-river plants…”.

It is predicted that during the coming dry months the load-shedding is going to exceed 16 hours a day from the present 11 hours. Even now, the midnight hours when the electricity demand is the lowest are not excluded from load-shedding. It is quite obvious that the NEA is now facing acute shortage of base load energy which could have been produced at exceptionally low cost within a very short period. Seasonal energy produced on a massive scale during few monsoon months could not be substitute for the firm energy needed to meet the ever increasing unfulfilled demand for base load during the dry seasons.

Seasonal Energy is Worthless

In the context of Nepal the seasonal energy is now worth nothing. At present there is not any demand for seasonal energy inside Nepal. The export of such short duration seasonal energy might not be feasible because its value could be only equivalent to saving in costs of the fuels in Indian thermal plants as a result of substitution to electricity imported from Nepal. According to the World Bank financed Karnali Project report the value of such exported seasonal energy could be equal to only 10% of the value of the firm energy. Contrary to very low valuation of the seasonal energy, the cost of the transmission specially provided to export seasonal energy could be as high as 20% of the value of the firm energy.

Storage Projects Not Suited

Large storage projects like the Budhi-Gandaki project and West Seti project would not be suited to resolve quickly the present power shortage crisis because it would take quite a long time to make arrangement to recover irrigation benefits accruing to downstream region. The irrigation benefits are found to be far exceeding the power benefit. For example, according to the detailed feasibility report of the Kankai Storage Dam Project carried out by the German Government in 1978 the annual irrigation benefit was found to be US Dollars 31.4 million whereas the power benefit was only US Dollars 7.2 million.

Gross Misuse of Existing Hydropower Projects

All the NEA owned hydropower projects, like the Kali-Gandaki, both Trisuli, both Marshyangdi, both Kulekhani and others are capable to run at full capacity even during the dry season periods. They have been built at enormous cost to supply electricity to meet the demand for peaking. Obviously, the generation cost of such peaking energy is always very high. Unfortunately at present the full capacity of these hydropower projects built to generate high valued peaking energy has not been fully utilized during the critically important dry season periods. They are now operated to produce a very large proportion of cheap energy to meet the demand for base load. Thus, the reservoirs, high barrages, turbines, generators, transmission lines and civil structures provided to generate and transmit peaking energy have not been utilized to the full extent. It is one of the reasons why the generation cost of the NEA produced electricity is high.

Horrific Plan

The generation cost of the peaking energy, as explained above, is about two to three times more expensive than that of the energy supplied to meet the demand for base load. A fifty percent proportion of the base load and the peak load capacities of the power stations operating in a power grid is normally considered to be optimum mix. It implies in our case that the overall firm generating capacity of our power grid should have already grown very high on top of the existing 450 MW firm capacity ( 400 MW peaking capacity and 50 MW base load capacity) in order to effectively use the additional peaking capacity of the NEA proposed 456 MW Upper Tama-Kosi project. Thus, it would be too uneconomic under present circumstances to implement a hydropower project suitable to produce excessively large peaking power such as the 456 MW Upper Tama-Kosi project.

We are at present grossly underutilizing the capacity of the existing hydropower plants and at the same time we are preparing to implement at huge cost excessively large new hydropower projects that are not feasible to meet the required type of demand for electricity supply in immediate future. As a result, the generation cost of the electricity would be sharply increased in future, and it would also take a very long time to implement the project earmarked to provide quick relief from the worsening power shortage crisis.

Mini Upper Tama-Kosi Project

For quick relief from the present power shortage crisis relatively a much smaller alternative of the NEA proposed 456 MW Upper Tama-Kosi Project would be best suited for implementation in near future. The proposed alternative to NEA’s 456 MW project would involve far less risk of damages to structures at the time of glacier lakes outburst floods (GLOF). Similarly, the possibility of substantial drop in generation of electricity resulting from the seepage of water through the highly porous floor of the reservoir particularly in dry seasons , when the demand for electricity is the highest, would be almost totally avoided.

Considering the nature of the present demand for electricity in our country and also the vulnerability of main project structures, the installed capacity of the Upper Tama-Kosi Project must be limited to just over 100 MW. Even after such drastic reduction in installed capacity the total generation of electric energy during the dry season period would still be equal or even exceeding the generation by the NEA proposed 456 MW project despite the fact that the cost of such mini- project would be only about one third. As the demand for peaking energy grows in future the installed capacity could be raised with ease by providing additional structures if it is found after some years of operation that the GLOF and the geology of reservoir site would not pose serious threat to the safety of the project.

Danger of GLOF

There are several rapidly growing glacier lakes near the project site in Tibet. The great risk of glacier lakes outburst floods (GLOF) to high gated barrage and other structures of the NEA proposed Upper Tama-Kosi project should not be underestimated. We already have a bitter experience of the 1984 Digcho GLOF when the Namche hydropower built on the upper reach of the Dudh-Kosi river was completely washed away.

The reconstruction cost could be too much if the barrage and intake structure of the NEA proposed Upper Tama-Kosi project would be seriously damaged by big GLOF. Power supply would be suspended for a very long time which would have terrible consequences for the economy of entire country.

The Mini Upper Tama-Kosi project would be having only ungated weir across the river. The GLOF would cause only limited damage to the weir. The damage could be repaired within a short period at a relatively small cost.

Seepage through Reservoir floor

It is reported that the flat reach of the Tama-Kosi river serving as the floor of the reservoir of the NEA proposed hydropower project is made of 300 meters high fill materials over the original river bed. The fill materials had accumulated after the landside dammed the river. There is a great possibility of excessively large seepage of water from the reservoir. As a result of such seepage, there can be significant reduction in electricity generation in dry season.

The mini Upper Tama-kosi project would not require the provision of a reservoir. The question of energy losses resulting from the seepage through the floor of the reservoir does not arise.

In Conclusion

Nepal does not need to go for large storage projects to generate enough firm energy needed to meet our demand for base load for coming many years. There are many suitable identified run-of- river type projects in the mid hill regions.

The Mini Upper Tama-Kosi hydropower would be relatively a very small project which could be implemented within a short period to provide quick relief from the present severe load-shedding. The generated electricity would be very cheap and thus it might not be necessary to raise significantly the electricity tariff within the coming few years.

There would not be much hitches in implementing initially the proposed mini project as first stage of the large 456 MW Upper Tama-Kosi project.

Dr. Thapa is a water resources expert and former member secretary of Water and Energy Commission.

By Jeeveraj Budhathoki

The history of organized armed conflict has been reluctantly written in Nepal where peace messengers like Buddhha and Bhrikuti were born. This situation occurred because of incoherent sentiments of the people based on different class, cast, language, religion and sex under the fake umbrella of national unity. Resulting from this, the armed struggle, running since 2052, formally ceased after the comprehensive peace accord between the Interim Nepal Government and the Nepal Communist Party Maoist on 05 Mangsir, 2063. This peace accord is also a part of the Interim Constitution. As mentioned under the peace accord, supervision, integration and rehabilitation are to be done by the special committee formed by Government. The same committee has now completed the re-verification of the Maoist combatants at the 7 main and 21 sub-cantonments.

However, the peace process is based on a temporary ceasefire; it is a prerequisite to be permanently settled down through managing Maoist combatants before writing the Constitution. So, the modality of working plan of combatants' management, its process and time frame, and the proper utilization of cantonments after combatants leave are the main facts this write-up deals with. Besides this, the alternative packages brought under the combatants' management program, selection of combatants, their response and the far going impact and the issues of fewer combatants than first verified, institutional corruption and investigation are the part and parcel of things to be discussed here. By the light of these facts and issues, a conclusion has been reached.

Let us go first to the facts. The Special Committee formed by the Government on supervision, integration and rehabilitation of the combatants under the comprehensive peace accord has brought three alternative packages under the combatant management program. Of them the first option is integration into the security sector. In which, 6,500 combatants are to be integrated as per the provision of seven points agreement reached among the main political parties. Second is voluntary retirement which provides minimum 5 to maximum 8 lakhs of rupees for each combatant according to their ranks. The last one is rehabilitation which comprises more than 60 options including many vocational educations and skills. Under this package, programs are categorized from one up to four years and the cost has been fixed for each program from 6 up to 9 lakhs rupees respectively. Subtracting the cost of any selected program and 1,000/- Rs per month for daily allowance of the total amount, combatants get the 30% of remaining amount at the beginning of the program and 70% after the program completing. However, the deadline for making cantonments vacant by the end of Mangsir, it seems taking some more time due to not completing the home works about handing over combatants to related authorities, leaving them for retirement and managing security measure about the cantonments having worth of more than two hundred million's amount, although a separate directorate under the Nepal Army is going to be formed for integration.

The latest statistics of re-verification has shown 16,982 combatants in total. Among them 9,690 prefer integration into security sector. The 7,286 prefer voluntary retirement and only 6 prefer rehabilitation. The 2,620 combatants seem less than verified first time by the UNMIN. Including the 7 division commanders, those who prefer integration say military service is better than politics to build new Nepal. Besides them, those who prefer rehabilitation and retirement, have committed not to raise weapons again and wanted to spend rest of their lives peacefully. They say further, their enmity prior to this was only against the autocracy but after their gaining the Republican Democracy they don't have any foes. But the disabled and wounded combatants are worried about the situation where they are not taken proper care of by those who made them to fight.

Now, let's analyze the above facts. However, the task performed by the special committee hitherto, can't be said evil but it hasn't had a foresight. Combatants' management should be in favor of sustainable peace and national interest. For this purpose, the scheme's conditions should have been firstly compulsory integration, secondly rehabilitation only if some would be unfit for security sector and lastly retirement, which should have only been allowed for ladies, disabled and over aged. Because, the only way of integration and rehabilitation would keep a grip on combatants for some time until peace gets maturity. Integration limits 6,500 and only 6 have chosen rehabilitation. It means a large number of combatants are going to be released and they can be used by those rebellions who want disorder in the country. The potential is there because they have military knowledge, skills and they may be offered good amount of money.

We have superficially understood and explained it according to our interests. On the one hand, some political parties have fear of more integration whether it doesn't deform the Nepal Army? Likewise the Maoist Party's statements from time to time of seizing state power has also created doubts about their existence. And on the other hand, the Maoist party asserts, to have been fully resolute on multi party democracy and for safe landing the combatants; it is necessary to integrate more combatants as they prefer. The perspective is different to this point and it doesn't favor the national interest. Even if we integrate the whole combatants into the Nepal Army having approximately the number of one lakh, it is like as pouring one cup of water into a Jar. It can't deform the Nepal army's dignity, ideals and loyalty towards democracy. Having been confident on this issue, Nepal army has not raised any question about it. But Nepal Army's only demand is to ensure minimum standard of recruitment can't be ignored.

Next, the issues of fewer combatants than first verified, institutional corruption and investigation have also been raised. But the serious question arising now is "what did the Special committee formed by the Government on supervision, integration and rehabilitation of the combatants do? Corruption not only relates to monetary issues but also it is adhered to not obeying someone's duties and not taking responsibility assigned to them. To take action against corruption is the responsibility of state mechanism and no one should get rid of it. But we must write the Constitution within coming 6 months, if we get entangled with such issues, which take years, then what will be the future of Constitution?

In conclusion, the combatants' management has picked up speed which is positive dimension of peace process and Constitution writing. It should always be in favor of sustainable peace and national interest. So combatants should not be the puppets of evil hands and we must be aware of such potential and doubt that can be created by our weaknesses.