Energy demand to reach around 8,000 MW in 15 years: Study

Kathmandu March 14-The demand for energy is projected to reach around 8,000 megawatt within next 15 years, which is sufficient to achieve modest growth of around six per cent. An independent study jointly conducted by the National Planning Commission (NPC) and Investment Board Nepal (IBN) has made a forecast that per capita electricity consumption will reach 700 kilowatt hour per year (kWh/year) by 2030, which can be met through total installed capacity of 8,000 MW.

Similarly, in another 25 years the per capita energy consumption is expected to hover at around 1,000 kWh/year and the country needs to develop 10,000 MW energy by 2040, as per the study. The NPC will set a target in its periodic plan based on the recent study. The current per capita electricity consumption is 132 kWh/year, which is much lower compared to other South Asian countries.

At present, around 58 per cent of the total population in the country has access to electricity.

The NPC and Investment Board have used energy demand forecasting model developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to conduct the study. The NPC and Investment Board have conducted the study to forecast actual demand of energy in the future because there is no realistic demand projection either from the Ministry of Energy (MoE) or Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).