Government of Nepal
Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation
Alternative Energy Promotion Centre
Making Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Mainstream Supply in Nepal
Updates
Wind Energy technology has become one of the most economical and proven renewable energy technology among all other renewable energy technology in recent years. Today, electricity generating wind turbines employ proven and tested technology, and provide a secure and sustainable energy supply. It is an environment benign resource and may compete in terms of generation cost to other conventional source of generation, for example hydropower plants in the context of Nepal. Wind energy could be an emerging as a major share of the energy mix and can be occupied a share up to certain percent of the total energy demand of the country
Unfortunately, it is still unexploited in utility scale however it can be very good alternative to address the gap between demand and supply of electricity in the country. Solar and wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA) project has made an attempt to map the wind resource potential in Nepal and has shown a very good prospect of wind energy development in Nepal with prediction of about 3,000 MW of wind power generation in Nepal. Recently two wind turbines each of 5 kW capacities with 2 kW of solar hybrid system has been implemented supported by Asian Development Bank in Nawalparasi, Dhaubadi VDC apart from small wind solar hybrid system pilot projects in various places of the country. Similarly AEPC has collected hourly wind speed data in 10 different locations of the country.
Achievements
i. Data acquisition
AEPC has achieved wind data over the following ten stations from different potential areas of the country.
ii. Small wind-solar hybrid system promotion
The establishment of wind - solar hybrid system of 400 watt with 150 watt solar power projects in six sites was installed. More than 19 households of dalit in Pyuthan including one Musgit and two secondary schools; one in pyuthan and one in Palpa was directly benefitted from these micro system projects. In the fiscal year 065/66 two more wind turbines had been added in Haibung VDC of Sindupalchock. More than 29 households were benefited by this project. The project sites were identified considering factors for safety, availability of attendants, cost effectiveness and demonstrability to rural community as well as sufficient availability of wind resource however due to lack of maintenance few of them are in malfunction.
iii. Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA) project
The Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA) project, a first of its kind in Nepal, has been executed by Alternative Energy Promotion Center in joint in-country Partnership with Center for Energy studies/ IOE with the support from United Nations Environment Program/ Global Environment Facility (UNEP/GEF) in 2003. The summary of the output of the SWERA project is as below.
The analysis carried out throughout the country has shown potential area of about 6074 sq. km with wind power density greater than 300 watt/m2. From the total area of 6074 sq. km only 10 percent has been analyzed and it has been found that more than 3000 MW of electricity could be generated with consideration of the installed capacity of 5 MW per sq.km and by the study it has been also noticed that the most potential areas lie in conservation areas of high and middle mountains of the country.
iv. 10 kW wind with 2 kW of Solar Hybrid power project
Two wind turbines each of 5 kW capacities with 2 kW of solar hybrid system has been implemented in Nawalparsi, Dhaubadi VDC supported by Asian Development Bank.
v. Studies