Electiricty consumption rises by 18 percent in first five months of 2016/17
KATHMANDU, Feb 8: Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) mobilized Rs 18.28 billion revenue from sale of electricity in the first five months of the current fiscal year, 32 percent more than what it had mobilized in the corresponding period of last fiscal year.
The electric utility managed to post healthy growth in revenue, thanks to uninterrupted power supply to many parts of the country mainly due to effective demand side management and 18 percent rise in electricity tariff in July last year.
Optimum generation by existing plants as well as import of additional electricity from India helped the NEA to post healthy growth in revenue mobilization.
According to NEA, electricity consumption increased by 17.98 percent in the first five months of Fiscal Year 2016/17, compared to the same period of the last fiscal year. An additional 290 billion units of electricity was consumed between mid-July to mid-December, NEA's statistics shows.
Speaking at a program in Kathmandu on Tuesday, Kulman Ghising, managing director of NEA, said that rise in electricity tariff contributed only 13 percent increment in weighted average revenue.
Meanwhile, NEA has proposed to the Electricity Tariff Fixation Commission (ETFC) to increase electricity tariff for industrial consumers by 20 percent.
According to the NEA, electricity consumption in water supply heading increased by 42 percent, temples by 36 percent and temporary settlements by 34 percent. Similarly, industrial consumption grew by 31 percent while consumption by non-commercial or public offices went up by 16 percent.
Commercial consumption, by entities like hotels and banks, saw increment of 14 percent, while domestic and community consumption saw a rise of 14 percent and 12 percent, respectively.
Industrial clients consumed additional 154.51 billions of units of electricity in the review period, making it the largest segment in terms of consumption, followed by domestic clients who consumed 98.55 billion units. Similarly, commercial sector consumed additional 17.43 billion units of electricity followed by non-commercial sector which consumed 9.41 billion units.
Meanwhile, the NEA has said that it managed to reduce technical loss by 1.5 percentage point from 26 percent in the review period.
Revenue collection up 29 percent
