Load Shedding

Hi guys,

I thought I'd just have to let you all know what's happening here in terms of our electricity over Christmas. 

In Nepal and especially the Kathmandu valley Nepal Electricity Authority cannot produce enough electricity to meet the demmand, therefore they have introduced load shedding to reduce demmand and ration electricity until the next rains.

So what's it all about? Well basically they turn the plug off for so many hours a day and everyone just has to put up with it. Last week we were on 45 hours a week without power and then yesterday this went up to 63 hours a week and forecast for upto 14 hours a day. Totally Crazy.

What does 10 hours a day without electricity look like? The following is an exert from the lastest load shedding schedule and shows the times we're without power...

   Monday     Tuesday    Wednesday     Thursday        Friday         Saturday            Sunday

06:30-12:30 Morning/Day   17:00-21:00 Evening

08:30-14:30 Morning/Day   17:30-21:30 Evening

10:30-16:30 Morning/Day   21:30-01:30 Night

20:00-23:00 Night

00:30-06:30 Morning   16.00-20.00 Evening

02:30-08:30 Morning   16:15-20:15 Evening

04:30-10:30 Morning   16:30-20:30 Evening

We basically are eating our evening meal with the kids by low level 11W bulbs using our inverter and 2 big car batteries... the majority of folk will be using candles. Same is true for bath and bedtime - so bedtime stories are in the light of a single light bulb or hurricane light. Then as if that wasn't enough we're also unplugged for breakfast. So no toast, no cold milk (unless we leave it outside!), no fairy lights on our make do Christmas Tree. Thankfully we brought our gas top kettle so we can have a cup of tea but it is not much fun.

Then to top it all off I learned yesterday that the financial model the NEA are using to price hydro electricity projects in the country underplay the amount of money required to produce a KW of electricty and then undersut the selling price so it is actually more lucrative to sell direct to India... therefore we are unlikely to see a reduction in the number of hours without power for years.... and then I think of the Cochraines who were sent by PCI to the Algarve... what's wrong with this picture?