Energy demand to go up four folds

Kathmandu,Nepal

Despite yawning economic growth rates, Nepal´s energy demand is projected to increase four folds over the next 20 years, stated National Energy Strategy (NES) 2010. The projected demand, estimated on the assumption that the country´s economic growth will remain at 5.6 percent on average till 2030, might go up if the country achieves higher growth rates, NES underlined.Nepal´s economic growth rate was 3.5 percent last year, much lesser than the projected growth of 5.5 percent.

The strategic policy paper prepared by Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS) aims to meet the growing demand by generating hydroelectricty and reduce the dependence on bio mass and fossil fuels. It has envisioned that by 2030 dependency over bio mass will be reduced by 33 percent. This reduction is likely to decrease the rural households´ reliance on firewood thereby trimming down the detrimental effects on the environment.

At 86 percent, bio-fuel still commands the lion´s share of the total energy demand. Fossil fuel, likewise, consists of 11 percent of the national energy demand. Hydropower and renewable energy make up 1.8 and 1 percentages of energy demand respectively. NES has also projected that the demand for hydropower energy will reach 12,000 MW by 2030. This implies that power generation endeavors will have to make significant strides by the next 20 years.

Iswar Singh Thapa, Joint-secretary at the WECS told Republica that the projection made by the strategic paper is a conservative estimate and was quick to add that total energy demand might scale up rapidly if the economy grows more than 5.6 percent.

The NES also warned that the entire economy of the country might plunge into a state of stagnancy if it fails to meet the energy demand. The strategy has focused more on the generation of hydropower and the use of clean and renewable energy instead of bio mass and fossil fuels.

Highlighting the possible impacts of high dependency on bio-fuel, Thapa said that if we continue to use bio mass, future generations might have to witness greater level of deforestation.

And fossil fuels import has already been bleeding the national economy with increased dependency on third countries. The NES also projects the dependency on fossil fuels to rise by 14 percent. WECS officials opine that hydropower must be made leading source of energy to decrease fossil fuels consumption.

Asked on whether energy consumption could be reduced in the event of low hydropower generation, WECS officials argued that economic development of a country is measured by energy consumption of its citizens.

NES has specific data that energy consumption in China, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka per person per year are 52, 22 and 21 Gigajoules respectively. However, energy consumption per person per year in Nepal is only 14 Gigajoules.
Source: www.myrepublica.com