Feet in two boats

Nepal’s contradictory energy policies expose the hollow rhetoric of our top political leaders. KP Sharma Oli, the current Prime Minister and chair of the CPN-UML, retracted the proposal to transport liquefied petroleum gases (LPGs) from India to Chitwan during his previous premiership in 2020, claiming that the country is working to increase hydropower capacity as an alternative to cooking gases. Yet, the same party’s Minister for Industry, Damodar Bhandari, recently visited New Delhi to discuss a gas pipeline project.

 

photo: TKP

Although Nepal initially requested the LPG pipeline project (from Motihari in India to Sarlahi in Nepal) to be built with a grant from its southern neighbour, insiders are sceptical that such an ambitious undertaking can be hard without a long-term agreement.

 

Such actions show that we as a country are nowhere close to prioritising green energy. On paper, Nepal plans to produce more than 28,000 megawatts of electricity by 2035 as part of its green, renewable energy ambition. But, in practice, it is desperately lobbying for a multi-million dollar cross-border LPG pipeline project with India.

 

What our policymakers seem to be ignoring are the risks fossil fuels pose to the environment and the setbacks they cause to the overall development of hydropower in the country. Evidently, reducing the reliance on LPGs would save the country more than Rs50 billion—which was spent on importing cooking gas in the last fiscal year—which in turn would also make a big dent in the country’s ever-rising trade deficit. Moreover, compared to the LPG, electricity-powered stoves are more sustainable, environmentally friendly and cost-effective.

 

But rather than cut their supply and imports in the country, policymakers are looking for ways to make them easily and widely available.

 

The pouring of billions into the gas project will make the path for the establishment of additional hydropower projects in the country more difficult. Despite having the potential to produce 40,000 megawatts, the country currently generates just around 3,000 megawatts. So experts warn that the hydropower potential is at risk of being undermined by the government’s investment in fossil fuel infrastructure.

 

At present, 44.3 percent of households in the country rely on LPG for cooking, and only 0.5 percent use electricity for the purpose, despite a surplus of hydroelectricity even during off-peak seasons. The government will require $25 billion to meet its target of replacing 25 percent of LPGs with electric stoves by 2030. Nepal is also looking to install 500,000 improved cooking stoves with a focus on rural areas. These green goals, unfortunately, are bound to get sidelined due to the LPG pipeline project.

 

It is not that the electric cooking vision doesn’t have challenges. There are issues of frequent power cuts and low voltages. Similarly, even though Nepal’s national grid has expanded to almost 95 percent of the country’s households, five percent are still left in the lurch. This again highlights the need to ensure uninterrupted electricity for all. It is high time the government gave up the temptation of short-term LPG gains and aligned its strategies with the vision of making electric stoves one of the primary cooking methods by 2030. The country’s energy security and environment are not the things that the government can take lightly.