Lalitpur, January 29: Over 400 thousand people of around 90 thousand households have their access to clean energy through the Renewable Energy for Rural Livelihood (RERL) project in the last five years. Such information was shared at a program held yesterday in the capital.
The Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC) in the financial assistance of the United Nations Development Programme and Global Environment Fund (GEF) launched the project in 2014. It was supported by small and micro hydropower and institutional and high capacity solar energy plants.
Power generated from the micro-hydro projects was supplied to the national grid, projects above 100 kilowatts were constructed, sick industries were reinstated and big and commercial solar plants were installed as model projects during the period between 2014-2019.
Speaking at the program, executive director of the AEPC, Madhusudan Adhikari, claimed, “Appropriate policy-level provisions and building of the organisational structure, mobilization of fiscal resources, construction of model projects, capacity enhancement of stakeholders and addressing their concerns are among the remarkable accomplishments of the project.”
As he described, such gains would serve as a strong basis for ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of not only the ongoing projects but also the future ones. Director, AEPC, Dr. Narayan Adhikari said the project helped the government promote the Sustainable Development Goal (7). RERL’s national project manager Satish Gautam said the project’s goals were met.
Similarly, solar plants and micro hydropower projects damaged by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake were rebuilt and the need for immediate power supply to the survivors was addressed. RSS
