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Executive Summary

Nepal is a country with enormous potential of supplying power through hydroelectric plants. However, living this dream of a country with fully utilized hydropower resources might take a fair bit of time. Meanwhile, we can think of ways to use the existing Hydropower plants in the most optimal and cost effective ways. For our final year project, we have thought of our project topic Potentiality of Pumped storage Hydropower Scheme in Nepal: A case study of Rupa and Begnas lake . We believe that pumped storage can serve as a great tool to supply electricity and reduce load shedding in the peak hours of wet season by utilizing the low cost and off-peak power from the grid. The method stores energy in the form of water, pumped from a lower elevation reservoir to a higher elevation. Low-cost off-peak electric power is used to run the pumps. During periods of high electrical demand, the stored water is released through turbines to produce electric power. Although the losses of the pumping process makes the plant a net consumer of energy overall, the system increases revenue by selling more electricity during periods of peak demand, when electricity prices are highest. Pumped storage is the largest-capacity form of grid energy storage now available. The annual peak demand during the driest period i.e. on Jan 13 th 2012 is 1026.65 MW at 6:25 pm. And the current installed capacity of Nepal is 718.621 MW but Nepal is supplying only 380 MW to 500 MW during dry period. Hence we are facing a daily load-shedding of 12 hours to 14 hours. But during wet season when we are producing 718.621 MW, we are still facing a daily load shedding of 4 hours mainly during 7 a.m.-10 a.m. in morning and 5 p.m.-9 p.m. during evening. According to load curve of Nepal we have enough off-peak energy which can be used to overcome load shedding by installing Pumped storage hydropower in current electrical system. NEA is also commencing a 400 kV Dhalkebar- Muzzaffarpur double circuit cross border transmission line to import 150 MW of electricity. Also there are number of hydropower projects presently under construction both in the public sector as well as in the private sector. Some are planned for implementation. With the commissioning of all those hydropower projects, substantial surplus energy is expected to be available especially during the night hours in the summer months. Then the pumped storage hydropower plant we are proposing can run throughout the year. The alluring topography and presence of two natural reservoirs in form of Begnas Lake and Rupa Lake with net head of 50 m in 500 m horizontal stretch describes the need of project. Hence our objective is to justify the potentiality of pumped storage in Nepal for reducing the issue of Power management and developing pumped storage as an integral tool to supply electricity during peak hours

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