But, Nepal has poor people.
Yes.
But Nepal is rich in renewable energy resources.
We have water, sunshine, wind, biomass, biogas, and geothermal.
With over 6,000 rivers flowing from the high
altitude Himalayan mountain range down to the Ganges Plain,
provide an economic feasible hydro power generation of 42,000 Megawatt.
But until now, Nepal has only an installed capacity of
607 megawatts with an average capacity factor of 44%.
Very poor.
There's a huge potential left.
With about 300 sunny days per year, the average global solar installation is four
and a half to six kilowatt hours per square meter per day on the plane of
the array, which is about 30 degrees south tilted on solar pd panels.
Wind.
While Nepal is not a wind country per se, many mountain ranges and
valleys, due to their natural valley effect, and high plateaus areas have
good wind resources, complementingâs the sunâs power.
Biomass, increased firewood demand outgrows natural grow rates, and
we have an annual increase in deforestation of almost 2%.
Biogas, in the lower flat part and southern part, towards India of Nepal,
between 100 and 800 meter altitude, most farmers have buffalos and
cows, sows providing dung for an anaerobic biogas digester.
Geothermal resource, we do have as well because the energy pattern debate and
tectonic plate movements make geothermal heated water often accessible at
the surface.
So you say, well, there are all these renewable energy technologies available.
Why don't you just pick them from the shelf and install them?
Truth to some extent.
However, we need to go and develop contextualized technologies,
technologies which are defined based on the local resources and
the local needs of the people identified.
The local energy services demands identified and
understood, along with the resources, the technology should be developed.
So, what is needed in order to provide the locally identified energy services that
utilize the available renewable energy resources, are solutions and technologies
which comply with, and compliment the local culture and traditions.
Are developed and manufactured locally?
Are affordable, and can be maintained by the locally trained end users.
Therefore, a renewable energy technology is contextualized when its design has
emerged based on the identified energy service demands of the end users.
The living conditions, economic power and
the ability to operate and maintain, the new
technologies with the newly acquired technical skills through training.
And here are some of the appropriate new contextualized technologies,
I have developed with RIDS-Nepal and Kathmandu University.
And I will come, little bit later back to a few examples.
Let's see some of the examples we have applied, and implement through RIDS-Nepal.
Pit latrine, addressing the millennium development goals.
Four, seven and eight.
And I will not repeat it every time, but various technologies and concepts and
infrastructures address directly the millennium development goals we
all work towards it.