Kathmandu, November 26: Despite this progress on the coverage and quality of electricity access in recent years, a large number of Nepali households still use firewood and other polluting and harmful fuels for cooking in Nepal, states a survey report recently released by the World Bank (WB).
According to it, almost 73.5 percent of households in Nepal cook with firewood, animal waste, crop residue or plant biomass while less than two out of 10 households — about 17.5 percent — have access to modern cooking services, according to the survey report.
“Nevertheless, 95 out of 100 households in Nepal have access to electricity, while 72 out of 100 households have access to reliable, affordable and uninterrupted access to electricity for a significant part of the day, marking remarkable progress over the past decade,” states the survey report.
“Providing access to high-quality energy services to each and every person in Nepal is one of the top priorities of the government. We are working to achieve 100 percent energy access by the year 2023,” said Dinesh Kumar Ghimire, secretary of the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation.
About 67 percent of households enjoy uninterrupted access to electricity for at least eight hours a day, where supply is affordable, reliable and conducive for the use of household appliances like fans and televisions. Overall, about 71.7 percent of households draw electricity from the national grid, while 23 percent are connected to off-grid sources like micro or mini-hydro and solar power.
“Since the 2017 survey, Nepal has made further progress by increasing the grid electrified population from 72 to 78 percent. The country has been load-shedding free since 2018,” said Faris H Hadad-Zervos, World Bank country manager for Nepal.
The Nepal national household-level survey is part of the Global Survey on Energy Access, which relies on the Multi-Tier Framework (MTF) approach piloted by the World Bank with the support of the Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP). This is the first time a survey has tracked the quality of electricity access across households in Nepal, compared to a more conventional, binary approach.
“The government is determined to put more emphasis on clean cooking solutions in order to achieve one electric stove in every home, as stated in the vision laid out in the Energy White Paper in 2018, to end the heavy reliance on imported liquefied petroleum gas for cooking,” said Madhusudhan Adhikari, executive director of the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre.
The survey suggests that for better quality of electricity access, households that access electricity through the grid, micro-hydro and mini-hydro sources must have electricity available for longer hours, particularly between 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm, where supply is reliable with fewer, unexpected interruptions and voltage fluctuation issues.
Households using solar devices and other low capacity sources of electricity will need to switch over to the grid or high-capacity off-grid solutions in the medium to long terms. For last-mile connections, households with no electricity can be offered low-cost renewable electricity with flexible payment options as an interim solution.
