A 400kV line begun in 2013 is about to be charged as ADB lines up private grid builders

Nepal's power system has long had a gap in its middle. Electricity generated in the west and centre of the country has struggled to reach the eastern Tarai and the main export point at Dhalkebar, because the 400-kilovolt line meant to connect Hetauda and Dhalkebar was never finished. That is about to change. Fourteen of the 16 towers still needed on the stalled section had been built by early October, and the line is expected to be charged after the Dashain holiday, The Rising Nepal reported on 5 October, quoting Dirghayu Kumar Shrestha, managing director of the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA).

Once in service, the line should lift transfer capacity between Hetauda and Dhalkebar from about 300 megawatts to roughly 2,000MW, according to The Rising Nepal. The energy minister, Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, who inspected the project on 4 October according to ShareSansar, described it as an east-west "energy highway".

Twelve years on a two-and-a-half-year project

Construction began in 2013 with a target of finishing in two and a half years, Kantipur reported in April. The section near Hetauda was blocked for years by residents of wards 15, 16 and 17 of Hetauda sub-metropolitan city, who objected to the line passing through settlements without adequate compensation. Work on tower foundations resumed in April under heavy security, according to Kantipur.

The last administrative hurdle fell in July, when the cabinet approved the use of 2.2 hectares of national forest in Hetauda-15, managed by two community forest user groups, and the felling of 1,292 trees, Ratopati reported. The line forms part of a corridor of about 300 kilometres linking Dhalkebar, Hetauda and Inaruwa. At the time, the minister said the full corridor would help raise Nepal's export capacity from about 1,000MW to between 2,500MW and 3,000MW, Ratopati reported.

Private money for the next lines

The next lines may be built differently. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has signed two transaction advisory agreements with the utility, its first such agreements for these kinds of projects in Nepal, The Kathmandu Post reported on 1 October. Under them, ADB will help the NEA prepare feasibility studies, draft project agreements and run the tenders for two public-private partnerships.

The first is a 134-kilometre, 400kV line along the Tingla-New Khimti-Dhalkebar corridor, to be designed, financed, built, operated and maintained by a private company. The second is 100 to 150 megawatt-hours of utility-scale battery storage at several NEA substations, intended to ease peak-hour constraints, absorb variable solar output and provide grid services. Together the projects are expected to mobilise more than $200m (about Rs 31bn) in private investment, according to The Kathmandu Post and Republica.

Arnaud Cauchois, ADB's country director, said Nepal's electricity access had risen from 58% in 2016 to 99% in 2025, Republica reported, and that the task was now to turn that growth into reliable domestic supply and sustained exports, according to The Kathmandu Post.

The agreements matter because transmission, not generation, has become the constraint. Private developers already supply most of the power on the grid, according to NEA figures reported by Ratopati. At the NEA's anniversary in August, the Independent Power Producers' Association, Nepal called for transmission to be opened to private companies, Kantipur reported. Private ownership of lines would mean the NEA no longer has to finance every line itself. The terms on which the NEA will pay a private line owner are not yet public.

What to watch: the date the Hetauda-Dhalkebar line is charged and whether flows reach the expected 2,000MW; progress on the Inaruwa end of the corridor; and the tender documents for the Tingla-New Khimti-Dhalkebar line and the battery projects, which will show how the NEA plans to pay private investors.