The Ministry of Energy (MoE) is all set to sign Project Development Agreement (PDA) with Nepal Water and Energy Development Compa-ny (NWEDC) for the development of 216MW Upper Trish-uli-1 Hydroelectric Project.

Ministry officials said negotiations with the NWEDC have reached final stages and that an agreement will be signed soon. “The negotiations have been completed and the final PDA draft is ready,” said the official. “We are all set to sign the agreement. It will probably be signed within a couple of weeks.” MoE Spokesperson Dinesh Kumar Ghimire said: “The deadline to sign the PDA is on mid-October, and we will complete it by then,” he said.

Since the project is being developed for domestic consumption, the PDA has to cover the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) too. “The PDA will authorise Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) to sign the PPA in US dollar terms,” said the official.

In the draft PDA, NWEDC has been given two years to complete the project’s financial closure, and five years to complete the construction and go online. After the

construction is complete, the developer will operate the project for 30 years and hand it over to government in working condition.

NWEDC is a joint venture company with stakes from three Korean firms (Korea South East Power Company, Daelim Industrial Corporation and Kyeryong Construction Industrial Corporation), International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, and Nepali investors.

The run-of-river-type project will generate power through three turbines of 72MW capacity each. The project is expected to generate 1456.4 gigawatt hours of net electricity per year, of which 1149.7 gigawatt hours would be generated in the wet season and 306.7 gigawatt hours would be generated in the dry season. The project site is near Dhunche, the headquarters of Rasuwa district.