India approves additional 251 MW power exports from Nepal

India’s Designated Authority for Cross Border Trade has approved an additional 251 MW of power exports from 12 hydropower projects in Nepal. For the first time Nepal would be exporting power to Bihar through a medium term power sales agreement, according to a press release issued by Indian Embassy, Kathmandu.

With this Nepal would be exporting a total of 941 MW of hydropower from 28 projects. Earlier, Nepal was exporting 690 MW power from 16 projects.

Nepal had already become a net exporter of hydroelectricity and net revenue generator in the last fiscal year amounting to NRs. 16.93 billion from electricity.

For the first time in 2021 India had approved 39 MW of power exports from Nepal to India. In less that three years this figure has grown by more than 24 times.

Nepal first started its power exports by selling in the Day Ahead Market of the Indian Energy Exchange. Since then, India has also granted access to the Real Time Market. Nepal Electricity Authority has also entered into medium term power sales agreements with discoms in Haryana and BIhar.

India has also opened the provision of counting hydropower imports from Nepal as a part of Hydropower Purchase Obligation (HPO) for buyers in India, which further incentivizes buyers to purchase power from Nepal.

India and Nepal had reached an agreement for long term power trade that envisages the sale of up to 10,000 MW power from Nepal to India in the next ten years. This is the first year of the agreement and around 1,000 MW of exports have already been reached. An agreement for sale of 40 MW power to Bangladesh has also been finalized and was planned to be signed on July 28 but postponed due to the recent political developments in Bangladesh. With these developments, Nepal is now on track to become the leading hydropower exporter of the South Asian region.