For decades, Nepalis have lamented the country’s inability to harness its enormous hydropower potential. Now, the problem seems to be the country’s inability to use the surplus that will soon be generated.

Since 1989, 123 large hydropower projects have been constructed on Nepal’s fast-flowing Himalayan rivers, bringing the total generation capacity to 2,148.5 MW. After new projects come online in the next six years, generation capacity could be 18,000 MW during the monsoon and 11,000 MW in the winter.

Our focus now should be not just on generating more power, but also finding ways to boost consumption by making electricity more competitive and sustainable.

Private sector projects generate 51% of Nepal’s hydropower, and the rest are government projects. We also need to decide on these three options: whether to entirely privatise hydropower production, give more ownership to the government, or create a strong regulatory body to let private and public go hand in hand.