Electricity leakage drops to 14.35% in four months

Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has been successful in reducing the electricity leakage in the system to 14.35 per cent in the first four months of the current fiscal year 2021/22.

The NEA is able to reduce the leakage in the system from 17.18 per cent in the last fiscal year by 2.83 per cent to 14.35 per cent in the last four months of the current fiscal year through regular campaign for power supply and control of technical and non-technical leakages.

Of the leakage in the system till mid-November, 9.24 per cent leakage is towards distribution and the rest is towards transmission and production, according to NEA. As of mid-November last year, the leakage towards distribution was 12.01 per cent.

The NEA has set a target to reduce electricity leakage to 15.5 per cent in the current fiscal year. NEA Managing Director Kul Man Ghising said that the target would be achieved in the remaining period of the current fiscal year as the leakage was less than the target in the first four months.

The NEA had reduced the leakage of electricity to 15.25 per cent in 2020/21 from 25.78 per cent in fiscal year 2016/17. However, in the fiscal year 2020/21, the leakage had increased by 1.91 per cent and reached 17.18 per cent.

Ghising pointed out that effective implementation of leakage control campaign, increasing the capacity of substations, adding conductors, replacing overloaded transformers and encouraging the use of three phase meters has contributed to reduce the electricity leakage.

He said that the work has been carried out to reduce the leakage from the target set for the current year by increasing the power supply in the industries and making the leakage control campaign more effective.

“For non-technical leakage control, theft control, strict in collection of tariff arrears, strict action against those who steal meters by bypassing and hooking up, replacing closed meters, encouraging people to take meters, identifying and reading customers who do not have meter are running as a campaign,” he said.

“We have been able to reduce leakage with the help and support of everyone, including the managers of distribution and customer service and the home administration, even when our employees have been attacked in many places while controlling theft.”

Stating that leakage will increase in Kathmandu Valley in winter and summer in Terai region, Ghising said that the current year’s target will be achieved by making the nationwide campaign for technical and non-technical leakage control more effective.

The NEA management will sign performance contracts with the heads of 7 provincial and two provincial division offices and subordinate distribution centre of NEA focusing on power leakage control, electrification and service flow improvement. “We have started to give responsibility on the basis of the concept of a suitable person in a suitable place to improve customer service, provide electricity to customers, control electricity leakage, and collect electricity tariff,” said Ghishing.