Understanding Nepal’s Hydropower Potential

Understanding Nepal’s Hydropower Potential

Dr. Arjun Bahadur KC

Nepal is experiencing an extreme shortage of electricity despite having an enormous hydropower resources potential for development not only for domestic consumption but also for export. The development of hydropower that started some hundred years ago has not been very encouraging, averaging about roughly 6 MW per year despite being touted of its theoretical potential. The hydropower development has been seriously affected by the inefficiency, politicization and mismanagement in state owned electricity utility-(Nepal Electricity Corporation/NEA) as well as in its line ministry. Neither NEA, nor its line ministry has ever created an investment friendly environment to foster a private as well as community development of hydropower in Nepal. Moreover, Government of Nepal lacks serious vision for the short-term as well as long term hydropower development in Nepal.

In addition, wrong information about the hydropower potential in Nepal is being disseminated to the students and the common people of Nepal. The rhetoric claiming Nepal as "second richest country" in the world after Brazil in hydropower potential has never been proved. With no surprise, Nepal's power potential is even smaller than our both neighbours, India and China. It is the time to change the course books of Nepal that claims Nepal to be the second richest country in hydropower globally. Nepali people, especially those young students who could be the agents of change need true information. This article presents a clear position on the real hydropower potential in Nepal.

Some half century ago, water resources expert Dr. Hari Man Shrestha conducted an academic research for his Ph.D. degree in Russia, which revealed that theoretically Nepal could generate 83,000 megawatts hydropower, of which 42,000 megawatts was economically and technically feasible. This estimate was made at a time when very little river water discharge data was generated by very few measuring stations. Dr. Shrestha also used average runoff dischange that includes the flood water as well, making the study to be only a very high level approximation. That however could have been considered the only possible way to estimate the hydropower potential where not much measuring stations were available during that time.

A recent study conducted by the team of Institute of Engineering, Tribhuwan University Nepal and led by Prof. Narendra Man Shakya has shown that Nepal has a total potential to generate 53,000 megawatts of hydropower in Nepal. This team's estimate was based on the latest water discharge data available with the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, using Geographic Information System (GIS). Unlike Dr. Hari Man Shrestha's study, this team estimated the hydropower potential excluding the flood water from the discharge data, making this study more reliable. However, the estimate of potential entirely depends on what type of models are used and what kind of assumptions are made while developing various scenario. This study however, does not tell what is the maximum generating potential in terms of electrical energy (GWh) based on wet as well as dry season flow durations. The author assumes that the team is in the way to estimate this as well.

The global theoretical hydropower potential is estimated to be 38,606,913 GWh while the technically feasible potential is 14,604,209 GWh annually (Hydropower and Dams, World Atlas, 2009). All the theoretical and technical capacity cannot be exploited because of the geographical, dry season flow available and economical reasons. It has been estimated that the global economically feasible hydropower potential is 8,771,502 GWh annually. Continentally, Asia has the highest economically feasible hydropower resource of 1,107,055 GWh followed by Europe (771,408 GWh), North and Central America (688,873 GWh), South America (641,216 GWh), Africa (102,107) and Oceania (41,886 GWh) annually. China and India have the largest economically exploitable hydropower resources in Asia. In terms of theoretical potential, China has the highest theoretical hydropower resources globally followed by Brazil, India, Russia, Indonesia, Canada and the USA. Figure 1 below shows the top 13 countries in the world with their gross theoretical hydropower potential (WEC, 2010).

Figure 1. Top 13 countries in the world with highest hydropower generation potential (gross theoretical GWh/Yr

The Jalsrotoi Vikas Sanstha (JVC) in 2004 reported that based on the 83,000 MWh theoretical capacity at 95% exceedance flow, the electrical energy generation capacity is approximately 145,900 GWh per year. As 50% of this is considered technically and economically feasible, the maximum electrical energy generation could be approximately 73,000 GWh annually even if we assume Dr. Shrestha's estimate were correct. The estimate provided by Dr. Shakya's group is approximately 64% of what Dr. Shrestha estimated. If we take the scenario that 50% of the potential estimated by Dr. Shakya is economically feasible for electricity generation, it will be approximately 47,000 GWh per year. Between these two estimate, Nepal's hydropower potential could be estimated to be between 47,000 GWh and 73,000 GWh annually. If we assume that Nepal's economically exploitable hydropower potential is about 50,000 GWh annually, this will rank in the 30th position in the global ranking. The World Atlas 2009 "Hydropower and Dams” states that Nepal's economically exploitable hydropower potential is 14,772 GWh annually, which puts Nepal on the 50th position in global ranking. Globally available economically exploitable hydropower resources for the top 50 countries are presented in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2.  Economically exploitable hydropower resources in to 50 countries in the world.

In addition to the theoretical and economically exploitable hydropower potential, other misunderstandings time and again has surfaced in the public and government level is that only the development of big hydropower plants can rescue the current poor energy supply situation in the country. In the last 2-3 decades, we spent significant time and efforts talking about the development of big hydropower projects such as West Seti, Arun III, Pancheswor etc. However, we have not moved forward for several reasons. We not only lack the capacity and experience to manage very big hydro projects, we do not have mechanisms to manage the environmental impacts and human impacts arising from such big projects. These all drag hydropower development to be unsustainable. To meet the present power deficit, our focus should be in the implementation of small and medium -sized projects in fast track basis to meet national power demand. Once the national power demand is met, large sized export-oriented projects need to be developed, which will practically take next 20-30 years at today's rate of development.

In conclusion, it does not matter wherever the Nepal's ranking on global stage is, it matters what information we provide to the public should be based on the scientific evidence. All it matters is whether we can exploit our economically feasible hydropower potential for the socio-economic development of the country or not. We have significant economically exploitable hydropower resources for our consumption as well as for export. The only way forward is to have small and medium sized projects implemented to meet the national demand for all sectoral energy consumption in short-and medium term. Until Nepal meets its national power demands, talking about the hydropower export does not sound to be a practical proposition.

(KC works as an energy and climate change expert in western Canada and can be reached at: kcarjun@gmail.com)

Source: NepalNews.com

Solar Batteries Poisoning Silent Springs in Nepal

Solar Batteries Poisoning Silent Springs in Nepal

Dr. Arjun Bahadur KC

Despite having over 6000 rivers and rivulets with abundant quantity of water flowing towards south, Nepal has gone through a severe water crisis everywhere in the country.  In the remote areas, water sources are very scattered and people have to spend hours to get a bucket of water. In cities such as Kathmandu, getting a bucket of water in the morning is like getting a victory after fighting a big war. Quality of water does not come into discussion as quantity is yet a big deal.  However, millions of people are suffering health problems not only because of insufficient supply but also having poor quality of water.  Poor quality of water could be due to various reasons; however, the focus of this article is to highlight the water contamination due to batteries especially from solar photovoltaic home systems discharging in the vicinity of Silent Springs in rural Nepal.

 Alternate energy development was supported in Nepal starting from Eighth Plan (1992-1997), and got continues focus in Ninth Plan (1997-2002), The Tenth Plan (2002-2007) and The Interim Plan (2007). Promotion of solar photovoltaic system was one of the priorities to enhance the rural livelihood in all of those plans.  As a result, over 87000 solar home systems were installed by the end of 2007 through SHP and it is planned to install approximately 150,000 SHS by the month of March 2012 on a demand driven basis. Solar home systems have been even more popular recently as the country goes to load shading of approximately 18 hours a day in dry months where water level in hydro dams reduces substantially.  

 Lead-Acid battery is still the battery of choice for 99% of solar and backup power systems in Nepal and everywhere. As the name indicates, it contains lead and acids, usually sulfuric acid. According to WHO (1989), lead is a highly toxic metal that produces a range of adverse health effects.  Lead exposure can cause brain damage; affect a child’s growth; damage kidneys; impair hearing among several other effects.  Elevated lead levels can increase blood pressure, kidney damage, digestive problems, nerve disorders, sleep problems, muscle, joint pains etc. Infants and children including fetus are more vulnerable to lead exposure as the tissues of small children are more sensitive to the damaging effects of lead. Acid is obviously a very caustic and toxic material as well.  The haphazard disposal of batteries whether solar or car batteries has a high potential to contaminate water.  USEPA has set 15 parts per billion (ppb) as the maximum level above which water system should be treated before consumption should it occur in drinking water. 

 The users of solar home systems in Rural Nepal have very minimum knowledge of the chemistry and operation of the batteries such as where to store safely, how long to charge, changing after its life cycle etc. The situation is severe in very remote districts such as Dolpa. Discharging the batteries in their backyards is a very common phenomenon in rural Nepal. In such cases, no safe methods of acid disposal are generally adopted such as neutralization, dilution, vegetation control, soil filtration etc. Over 180,000 batteries were imported for solar electricity generation purpose in Nepal from different countries. After their useful life, the batteries are usually disposed as garbage discharging the acids to land or water bodies and sell the remaining part to India.

 Management of batteries poses a certain challenge from health and safety point of view.  Most of the users of the solar home systems are not aware of the general know how, the storage of used batteries and acid disposal practices. It is reported that in many cases, the users have been changing the batteries without following the proper health and safety procedures. Users do not know the harmful effects about the acid and lead. Moreover, the allowance of transfer of batteries in neighboring India is against the Basal Convention principle which came into effect in 1992. The Basel Convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the transboundary movements of hazardous waste between nations.  Being the signatory of Basal Convention, it is Nepal’s responsibility to safely manage the battery waste as it provides subsidy to solar home system installation. However, to date, Government of Nepal has neither drawn any policies nor taken any actions towards battery waste management. This situation has created serious concerns on lead contamination in soil and groundwater especially the springs in rural Nepal. Even though, lead can be emitted from other sources, solar home systems could be the most dominating source of lead emission into water bodies in Nepal. A recent study (China Daily, 2009) in China showed that over 121 children out of 287 tested were exposed to over 100 and 218 micrograms of lead per liter of blood and due to this reason the villagers of Huaqiang Battery Plant want to shut down the battery plan forever.  Daniel Chiras (2006) wrote that even residents of Nepal which is a non- industrialized country have 10 times higher level of lead in their blood level than those estimated to be present before the widespread use of lead which attests the global distribution of lead into the atmosphere. It shows that lead emission is a global phenomenon, however, thousands of batteries used in solar home systems in rural Nepal aggravates the problem contaminating the water bodies threatening millions of lives.

 Discussion on how to recycle the solar batteries is surfacing in Nepal recently.  DANIDA indicated in their Review Report that there is a feasibility of lead acid battery recycling plant in Nepal. However, due to very diverse geography and the lack of proper physical infrastructures, collecting batteries to a recycling plant can be a big challenge. Moreover, there is no incentive and policy for the users to deposit used batteries. To make battery collection effective for example, the users should be allowed to buy a new battery only if they deposited the used one. 

 Even though solar home systems are promoted as ideal solutions for isolated and mountainous areas where grid connection is not feasible, its long-term environmental consequences outweigh its benefits. Moreover, most of the parts of solar home systems are all imported from abroad and money sent by donor agencies is diverted abroad to buy solar home system and their parts. From the strong sustainability point of view, as solar home system is neither good for environment in long-term nor stimulates Nepalese economy, SHS falls under weak sustainability in Nepalese perspective. 

 Until proper mechanism of batteries and acids collection and recycling/disposal are established, Nepal should reconsider its solar home system policy in favor of its alternatives such as micro hydro projects, biogas, improved cook stoves and biomass gasification systems. These alternatives are not only carbon neutral but do not have negative environmental impact from their life cycle operation. Based on the above mentioned facts, Nepal Government and Donor Agencies should promote micro/mini/small hydro, biogas, biomass combustion technologies such as improved cookstoves, gasifiers instead of solar home systems in Nepal in order to save the battery poisoning of Silent Springs of Nepal as well as stimulate the Nepalese economy. 

Note: The author is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sustainable Energy Development in Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada and can be reached at kcarjun@gmail.com. 

Source: http://www.spotlightnepal.com/News/Article/-Solar-Batteries-Poisoning-Silent-Springs-in-Nepal (as per Dr. Arjun KC)

Non-Edible Oil Feedstocks for Biodiesel Production in Nepal

Non-Edible Oil Feedstocks for Biodiesel Production in Nepal

Dr. Arjun Bahadur KC

Nepal is reeling from an extreme shortage of electricity and petroleum products. Lack of  transportation fuels, cooking gas, kerosene and several hours of load shading daily due to  insufficient supply of electricity have been the inherent part of the Nepalese society these days.  This has not only affected the daily living of the people but has also severely hampered the economic and industrial development of the country. Even though several alternatives have been sought, no concrete progress has yet been made in the development of alternative and renewable energy development. There is no indication that the import of petroleum products will decline anytime soon, leaving the country more vulnerable than ever in terms of energy supply. Production of liquid biofuels such as biodiesel is one of the several ways to reduce the import of petroleum products and save significant amount of hard earned dollars in the country.

Over 87% of the total primary energy in Nepal is derived from traditional biomass sources such as fuelwood, agricultural residues and animal wastes, 12% from commercial sources such as petroleum and electricity and approximately 1% by renewable alternatives (WECS, 2010). It has also been reported that Nepal spends approximately 50% of its earnings from its commodity export to import petroleum products which provides only about 10% of the total energy consumed in the country. Despite the huge sum of money spent, the petroleum products are always in short supply. For example, Nepal supplied only about 48% of the total demand of petroleum fuels in 2008 (Bhattarai (2009). The state owned Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) is the sole supplier of petroleum products in Nepal. The NOC neither has financial capacity nor the storage capacity to meet the country’s demand of petroleum products. The government has no long-term planning on the sustainable supply of liquid fuels.

Nepal’s transport sector is the second largest energy consumer only after the domestic sector. The energy consumption in this sector is rising continuously at a rate of 8.9% annually and uses approximately 9 % of the total energy consumed in Nepal (WECS, 2010). Over 63.2% of the total petroleum consumption occurs in the transportation sector followed by approximately 16.6% in residential sector, 10.5% in agriculture sector, 8.2% in commercial sector and slightly over 1.4% in industrial sector. The share of petroleum used in the industrial sector, which is extremely low, indicates the bleak situation of the country’s industrial and economic development. It was also found that High Speed Diesel took the highest share with 67% of all energy used in the transportation sector followed by approximately 20% Motor Spirit (gasoline), 12% Air Turbine Fuel (ATF) and 1% Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) fuel. This clearly shows that even a small fraction of biodiesel production in the country will reduce the dependence of diesel as it has the highest share of total petroleum consumption, increase the local economic opportunity and reduce air pollution and particulate emission due to diesel use.

The consumption of diesel in the country is significantly increasing annually. In 1993-1994, the diesel consumption was approximately 195 million litres. This amount increased by 61% and the total diesel consumption was approximately 489 million litres in the year 2008-2009. Majority of this diesel is used as transportation fuel. This shows that blending any amount of biodiesel with conventional diesel will have positive impact in energy balance, economy and environmental pollution.

Nepal is endowed with huge natural resources over its entire area of about 14.1 million hectares. In addition, Nepalese forests are reported to have a vast quantity of oil bearing plants. It has also been reported that over 286 oil bearing plants are found in Nepal and out of them, 92 species produce seeds with oil content exceeding 30% (Singh, 1980). In some cases, the oil content could reach as high as 80% (Shrestha et al 2003, Boswell 1998). Pine oil (pinus roxburghii) is one of such oil bearing plants found in Nepal with estimated 3 million tonnes of oil production annually (Kumar et al., 2006). Biodiesel can also be produced from dhaka (Aregmone mexicana), nageswhor (Mesua ferrea), jatropha (Jatropha curcas), soapnut oil Sapindus mukurossi), mahua oil (Madhuca Indica), seabuckthorn oil (Hippophae rhamnoides L.), caster oil, hempseed oil, rapeseed oil, soybean oil, waste cooking oil and animal fat available in Nepal. Nepal is a net importer of food. The use of food grade grains such as rapeseed oil and soybean oil for biodiesel production should not be allowed in Nepal. Therefore the emphasis should be placed on the use of non-edible oil feedstocks such as jatropha oil to produce biodiesel fuel in Nepal.

Parajuli (2009) reported that about 30% of 14.1 million hectares (approx 4.23 million hectares) of the total land of Nepal is considered favorable for jatropha cultivation. In addition, approximately 2.38 million hectares of land is in buffer zones of various national parks and wild life reserves, of which 0.39 million hectares is climatically suitable for jatropha production. Chhetri (2012) modeled several scenarios based on the climatic distribution for jatropha production in Nepal assuming that 1000 litres of jatropha oil can be produced per hectare of land annually. If jatropha is planted in 100% of climatically favorable land, 4230 million litres of biodiesel can be produced, which is almost 9 times higher than the diesel imported in Nepal in 2008-09. If jatropha is produced in only 20% of the total land climatically favorable for its cultivation, 846 million litres of biodiesel can be produced, which is 175 % more than the total diesel consumption for the year 2008-2009 in Nepal (489 million litres). Both of these scenarios may not be practical at present. Chhetri (2012) also modeled several jatropha production scenarios only in non-cultivated agricultural land and buffer zone area. It was found that even if jatropha is planted only in 20% of non-cultivated agricultural land and 20% of buffer zone area, about 303 million litres of biodiesel can be produced. This amount can replace approximately 62% of the total diesel consumed in Nepal in 2008-09. The most practical scenario will be to target the jatropha production in only 5% of the non-cultivated agricultural land and 5% of the buffer zone area where roughly 76 million litres of biodiesel can be produced, that means approximately 16% of diesel import could be reduced. This amount will be sufficient to blend 78% of the total diesel imported in 2008-09 if 20% blend ratio is used, which is significant. This will reduce significant amount of carbon dioxide emissions, save money and provide more stability in transportation fuel supply in Nepal. In addition to this, a significant amount of carbon dioxide can be sequestered through jatropha plantation. For example, if jatropha is planted in only 20% of non-cultivated agricultural land and 20% of buffer zone areas, approximately 2.43 million tonnes of carbon dioxide can be sequestered, which will be roughly equal to 17 million US dollars in CDM grant money annually (8 tCO2e/ha).

However, current policy of the Government of Nepal (GoN) is not sufficient to promote jatropha production for biodiesel use. There is neither minimum blend ratio requirement for diesel nor any portfolio standard for green energy mix in diesel. There should be a long-term energy strategy for biodiesel development and promotion to avoid too much dependence on imported diesel. The GoN should first promulgate the biodiesel blend requirement regulation; provide incentives for biodiesel feedstock plantation, tax exemption for equipment import and so on. Even before all this, educational awareness on the potential of biodiesel production and its positive impact on overall energy mix in Nepal should be started as a campaign.

Dr. Arjun KC is a carbon and energy specialist, delivering his consulting services in western Canada. He can be reached at kcarjun@gmail.com.

Source: http://sln.tulipstechnologies.com/sln/Forum.aspx?ArticleID=4249  (as per Dr. Arjun KC)