Nepal power exports reach Rs 5.9bn despite floods, as Bangladesh supply restarts
Nepal's electricity earnings rose in the month to mid-October 2026 even though a glacial flood had damaged key plants, a reminder of how far its export model depends on India's regulators and grid.
When a glacial flood tore down the Bhotekoshi valley on 26 August 2026, it damaged two of the hydropower plants that Nepal had cleared to sell electricity abroad. Trishuli and Chilime went offline, and with them the 40 megawatt supply line to Bangladesh. Yet in the month to mid-October, Nepal's power export revenue did not fall. It rose.
The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the state utility, sold electricity worth Rs 5.925bn to India between mid-September and mid-October 2026. On 23 October 2026 it restarted the Bangladesh flow, using different plants and India's transmission network. The question is how resilient this newest export business is, and who controls its switches.
A month that rose despite the floods
The NEA dispatched 633.98 million units of electricity to India in the period. Revenue of Rs 5.925bn was Rs 962m above the Rs 4.963bn earned in the same month of 2025/26, a rise of about 19%. It was also Rs 832.5m above the Rs 5.0925bn earned between mid-August and mid-September 2026, a gain of about 16%.
Source: Nepal Electricity Authority data, as reported by Kathmandu Post and Online Khabar
Over the first quarter of 2026/27, covering Shrawan, Bhadau and Asoj in the Nepali calendar, export sales reached Rs 16.1513bn. At the central bank's rate of Rs 151.44 to the dollar, set by the Nepal Rastra Bank, that is about $107m, and the latest month alone is about $39m.
A rough calculation, which is our own and not an NEA figure, puts the average realised price at about Rs 9.3 a unit.
Two channels, two kinds of risk
Nepal sells into India through two doors. The first is a set of medium-term bilateral contracts supplying the states of Haryana and Bihar, which run each year from June through October. The second is competitive trading on the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), in its day-ahead and real-time segments.
NEA Managing Director Dirghayu Kumar Shrestha said about two-thirds of the volume sent to India in the period was sold under bilateral contracts, and the remaining third cleared on the exchange.
The split matters for investors. Bilateral contracts are tied to named plants, and the flood partly disrupted deliveries to Haryana because some designated stations were no longer generating.
In our analysis, exchange sales are likely to be more flexible, though they carry price risk. Because the bilateral window ends with October, the exchange may carry more of the load afterwards. That is reasoning from the contract calendar, not a figure in the data.
The plant list is the real asset
Exports are not simply a matter of building a dam and a line. Each plant must be cleared by India's Central Electricity Authority (CEA), and that clearance names the stations allowed to supply a given buyer.
After the flood damaged Trishuli and Chilime, supplies could resume only once the CEA approved substitutes. Devighat was also removed from the designated list. The CEA cleared the Solu, Kabeli and Lower Modi stations in their place. Reports differ slightly on the allocation: one outlet says Solu Khola and Kabeli B1 serve Bangladesh and Lower Modi Khola serves Haryana.
It took under two months from the flood to the restart. Shrestha called the resumption an important development for Nepal's electricity trade, and said it would help manage monsoon surplus and widen regional power trade.
The episode also shows how much sits outside Nepal's control. Power for Bangladesh crosses Indian territory on Indian wires, under Indian approvals. A trilateral arrangement of this kind works only while all three governments keep their paperwork moving.
The approvals keep widening. The CEA has issued fresh clearance for another 31MW, which brings the total capacity authorised for export to India to about 1,179MW.
Bangladesh: a small flow
The Bangladesh supply is only 40MW. The NEA and the Bangladesh Power Development Board signed a five-year agreement on 3 October 2024, under which Nepal sends that amount daily between 15 June and 15 November each year.
The restart on 23 October 2026 leaves just over three weeks of the 2026 window, so the volume recovered this season will be small. The test is whether the arrangement holds through the next monsoon.
- Glacial flood on the Bhotekoshi damages Trishuli and Chilime plants; Bangladesh supply halts
- 40MW to Bangladesh resumes via India's grid using replacement plants
Source: Kathmandu Post, Online Khabar, Clickmandu
What to watch
- Whether the replacement plants can hold steady output through the remaining weeks of the Bangladesh window, which closes on 15 November 2026.
- How much of Nepal's sales shift to the exchange once the bilateral contracts for Haryana and Bihar end after October 2026.
- Whether Trishuli and Chilime return to the CEA-approved list after the flood damage.
- Further CEA approvals beyond the current 1,179MW.
How this story was made: researched and written by The Standard’s desk with AI assistance, from the published reporting and official data credited below, and checked against those sources. Our standards.
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