Nepal bet nearly everything on hydropower - the floods show why that's a problem

Kelly NgandNavin Singh Khadka,Environment correspondent, BBC World ServiceDidier MartiUntil eight years ago, Nepal used to struggle with lengthy power cutsAlmost 100% of Nepal's electricity comes from hydropower, and it produces so much it earns nearly $200m (£147m) each year exporting hydroelectricity to India and Bangladesh.But the very glaciers and mountains giving Nepal this massive natural advantage are succumbing to global warming - and last Wednesday's deadly floods have laid bare the risks to the nation's hydropower ambitions.More than 1,300 people were killed, while thousands more are still missing.The floods, which destroyed entire villages near the border of Nepal and Tibet, severely damaged 12 hydropower plants in the Trishuli River basin and knocked out more than 10% of Nepal's total power generation capacity. Operators tell the BBC they don't yet know if any of these facilities can be brought back to operation.The state-owned Nepal-electricity-authority" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="198851" data-entity-type="organization">Nepal Electricity Authority, which owns six of the 12 damaged facilities, has assured Nepalese households that supply remains adequate. But its spokesman Rajan Dhakal acknowledges that with climate-related disasters becoming more frequent, "the time has come for a rethink of our hydropower policy".AFPMore than 10% of Nepal's total electricity generation capacity was wiped out by the massive flash floodsOnly two-thirds of people in Nepal had access to electricity in 2010, and even connected households would face power cuts for up to 16 hours a day.An expansion of hydropower infrastructure alongside efforts to tackle corruption and boost energy imports from India to fill seasonal gaps meant that by 2018, most of Nepal was enjoying 24 hours of power supply per day.At present, there are 225 hydropower plants across Nepal with more than 3,900MW of installed capacity, according to the Nepal-electricity-authority" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="198851" data-entity-type="organization">Nepal Electricity Authority - capable of powering some three million households simultaneously.Hundreds more such facilities are either being constructed or in the pipeline. Most of them are built high up in the mountains, where they can seize fast-flowing currents to generate power. These projects require little to no storage system.However, with the high-altitude regions of the Himalayas warming 50% faster than the global average, they face greater environmental risks. Preliminary investigations have pointed to a collapsed glacier and its bedrock as the cause of last week's flash flood.Boy_AnupongExperts say there is a need to diversify Nepal's energy sourcesWhile scientists say it is too soon to draw any firm links to climate change, Nepal's Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority previously said more than nine in 10 disaster events recorded between 2018 and 2024 were "related to climate".Nepal's former Energy Minister Kulman Ghising, who called the catastrophic deluge a "once-in-a-century" event, says it holds lessons for designing plants and picking sites where they are built."We need to design the plants [to be more] resilient to the floods and, most importantly, adopt early-warning systems as well as robust emergency evacuation measures," he told environmental news outlet Mongabay.Potentially hundreds of hydropower labourers, engineers and residents are thought to be trapped inside the mud-filled tunnels of these plants since the floods hit.A "rethink" of Nepal's hydropower strategy could involve reservoir-based plants that need not be situated up in the mountains, says Dhakal from the Nepal-electricity-authority" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="198851" data-entity-type="organization">Nepal Electricity Authority. These could allow water to be stored and released as needed, but would also involve significant economic and environmental costs.'All our eggs in one basket'Some question if Nepal has been too reliant on hydropower."We should not be putting all our eggs in one basket in these dangerous times," says renewable energy expert Kushal Gurung, who founded the clean tech firm WindPower Nepal."We need to seriously embrace other alternatives as well, like solar and wind. And for that we will need to revise our energy policy that is at the moment very pro-hydropower," he says.The claim is echoed by Vivek Shastry, researcher at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy, who argues that "meaningful additions of wind and solar generation is a resilience strategy that can limit single-point or interconnected electricity system failures in the future".A report from the German aid agency suggests the technical potential for energy production from solar power in Nepal is around 10 times larger than that of hydropower. Puspa Sharma, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Institute of South Asian Studies, agrees Nepal has to diversify its energy sources, but warns this can be done "only to a limited extent"."While there is untapped capacity in wind and solar, hydropower really is the one that gives Nepal massive competitive advantage vis-a-vis its South Asian neighbours," he says, citing various studies comparing renewable energy potential in the region.Getty ImagesA German report suggests Nepal could potentially generate more electricity from solar power than from hydropowerHydropower continues to dominate large-scale investments in Nepal, and some climate activists say the funding has continued despite known disaster risks.The Upper Trishuli-1 project, which has been all but destroyed after last week's floods, was one of Nepal's largest foreign direct investment ventures, valued at about $647m. Its backers include the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation.The Upper Trishuli 3A, which has also been severely hit, was funded by China's Export-Import Bank.Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, says international lenders were "acutely aware of the extreme danger to which they were exposing thousands of labourers, officials, residents, rivers, infrastructure and landscape"."Their own reports repeatedly highlighted it. But they did not take any preventive steps, did not demand stringent checks and balances, nor were they prepared for a calamity they knew could occur," he says.History has already shown the Trishuli River basin to be volatile, Thakkar says, pointing to how it had been hit by floods in the last two years. In September 2024, an unprecedented cloudburst over the Trishuli and Bhote Koshi river basins sparked flash floods in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading - settlements by the river that are also among the hardest hit from last week's floods.Then in July 2025, a glacial lake in Tibet's Gyirong county burst and swept down this very same stretch of river into Nepal, killing at least 11 people. That flood damaged critical infrastructure and halted trade along the busy Nepal-China corridor. The border crossing was shut for nearly six months and had only reopened on 1 January this year.Dhakal from the Nepal-electricity-authority" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="198851" data-entity-type="organization">Nepal Electricity Authority admits that even if climate risk assessments were carried out correctly, "the designing of the plants may not have been done accordingly"."Clearly we will need to improve in the way we build and operate our hydropower plants," he adds.Private operators are already feeling the financial impact. Insurers have paid out around $40m for flood-related damage to more than 20 privately owned plants over the past three years, according to Uttam Bhlon Lama from the Independent Power Producers' Association of Nepal.He warns insurance premiums are rising significantly and making the cost of doing business "unfeasible".NurPhoto via Getty ImagesMore than 1,300 people have died in Nepal during the recent disasterThis disaster shows climate risks are international and cannot be managed by Nepal alone, suggests Manjeet Dhakal, a member of the country's climate delegation at the UN Climate Change Conference.Governments and international organisations must share data, assess impacts and develop early-warning systems together, he urges."Nepal is among the least responsible for the greenhouse emissions that led to these exacerbated risks."Ironically, our hydropower industry is an attempt to reduce our already minimal emissions... We cannot, and should not, be made to respond to these risks alone."