India secures approval for second hydropower project in Nepal, strengthening bilateral energy cooperation - WION
India secures approval for second hydropower project in Nepal, strengthening bilateral energy cooperation - India News News
India secures approval for second hydropower project in Nepal, strengthening bilateral energy cooperation
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Second hydropower project in Nepal by India: The development comes days before Prime Minister Prachanda's visit to India starting Wednesday. The draft needs to be endorsed by the Council of Ministers before it gets implemented.
Nepal on Sunday decided to allow India's Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) Limited to develop a second hydropower project in the country. At present SJVN is developing a 900-MW Arun -III hydroelectric project, a run-of-river located on the Arun River in Eastern Nepal, scheduled to be completed in 2024.
A meeting of the Investment Board Nepal (IBN) chaired by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda approved the draft project development agreement (PDA) to be signed with India's state-owned SJVN to develop the 669-megawatt (MW) Lower Arun Hydropower project in eastern Nepal, an official statement said.
The development comes days before Prime Minister Prachanda's visit to India starting Wednesday. The draft needs to be endorsed by the Council of Ministers before it gets implemented.
The previous meeting of the IBN had approved Rs 92.68 billion investment for the development of the project.
The development of this 669-MW transformative project will prove to be a milestone for the socio-economic development of the country, according to the statement by the IBN.
The SJVN has formed a local company, Lower Arun Power Development Company, in Nepal.
The Lower Arun project located in the Sankhuwasabha and Bhojpur districts will not have any reservoir or dam and will be a tailrace development of Arun-III, which will mean water re-enters the river for the Lower Arun project.
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This is the third project undertaken, all through negotiation windows, on the Arun River after the 900 MW Arun-III and 695 MW Arun-IV hydroelectricity projects.
The three projects will generate nearly 2,300 MW of electricity from the river in Sankhuwasabha district, The Kathmandu Post newspaper reported.
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Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: hydropower
Hydropower — electricity generated by turbines capturing energy from moving water — was for many years the primary contributor of renewable energy to the U.S. electricity grid. Its growth was rapid into the 1970s, and since then has offered a stable supply of power, while a declining share of all generation. For many years, hydropower was seen as clean energy and an unalloyed good, but a greater understanding of the impact of dams on ecosystems and wildlife has led to the removal of some dams. As of 2019, hydropower trails wind as a renewable source of power generation.