Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. has announced that it has entered into a consulting services agreement with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to conduct a data collection survey on the public-private partnership (PPP) modality in hydropower projects in Nepal.

Nepal suffers from chronic power shortages especially during the dry seasons as its electricity generation depends on run-of-river hydropower plants. To combat this, the Nepalese government has set the development of storage type hydropower generation as an urgent task. In support, JICA was recruiting consultants to investigate the potential of using PPPs to execute hydropower projects. Kansai has been selected together with its subsidiary NEWJEC Inc.

The project dispatches experts from NEWJEC and Kansai to Nepal from February 2019 to May 2020. The experts will conduct the data collection and the problem analysis regarding the PPP model in the hydropower generation sector through Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation (MoEWRI) and Vidhyut Utpadan Company Limited (VUCL).

The project aims to create the documents required by JICA to formulate supporting measures to promote the sustainable development of Nepal, and to advise on specific institutional system design to conduct and promote PPP investment.