India to send Nepal 654 MW for 18 hours a day after the August floods

India's power ministry approved, on 14 September, the export of 654 megawatts to the Nepal Electricity Authority for 18 hours a day from 13 September through 31 December. The window runs from midnight to 6 p.m. Up to 600 MW will move on the Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar 400 kilovolt double-circuit line. Up to 54 MW will move on the Tanakpur-Mahendranagar 132 kilovolt single-circuit line. December will decide the volume for January 2027.

The reason is written into the same press note. Flash floods on 26 August, set off by an ice-rock avalanche near the Nepal-Tibet border in the Trishuli and Lhende Khola basins, wrecked hydropower plants across northern and central Nepal. More than a dozen stations were damaged or swept away. About 550 MW of generation went offline. Nepal had been selling power into India. Those sales dropped by about 400 MW. The flow has now reversed.

Before the floods Nepal had roughly 4,200 MW of installed and running capacity, almost all of it hydro. Hydropower is the country's export crop in electricity. In a wet year it sells surplus into the Indian grid. In a week when rivers take the turbines, it has to buy. The 654 MW approval is that purchase order, written from the Indian side.

Two lines, two capacities, one clock

Muzaffarpur-Dhalkebar is the main cross-border link, a 400 kV double circuit that can carry the 600 MW slice. Tanakpur-Mahendranagar is an older 132 kV single circuit limited to 54 MW. Together they add to 654 MW, but they are not interchangeable. If the bigger line trips, the smaller one cannot take the slack. The 18-hour cap, midnight to 6 p.m., is also a statement about India's own evening peak. New Delhi is keeping the 6 p.m. to midnight block for domestic demand.

That demand is high. India has been running record loads through a hot, uneven monsoon. Exporting 654 MW for 18 hours is about 11.8 million kilowatt-hours a day at full draw, or roughly 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours over the 110 days of the approval if every hour is used. Actual dispatch will sit below that ceiling. Nepal will nominate. Indian system operators will accept what the two lines and the evening constraint allow.

Nepal has also asked China for help rebuilding the Syaphrubesi-Rasuwagadhi road, the trade route smashed in the same flood pulse. The power request went to India because the wires already exist. The road request went to China because the damaged alignment is the northern one. Both are flood invoices, sent to different capitals.

The reversal has a price

When Nepal exported to India, the sales were a hard-currency line in Kathmandu's accounts. When India exports to Nepal, the bill runs the other way. The ministry's note does not publish a tariff. Cross-border trades on these lines have historically cleared near the Indian day-ahead price plus transmission charges. With Indian wholesale electricity tight and coal and gas expensive, that price is not the off-peak bargain Nepal collected in surplus months.

The political reading in both capitals will be simpler than the tariff. New Delhi will call the approval support for a neighbour. Kathmandu will call it a stopgap until turbines return. Both descriptions are accurate. The more durable fact is the grid itself. The 400 kV line that now carries Indian power north can carry Nepali power south again once the rivers and the plants recover. The approval expires on 31 December unless December's review extends it. The wires will still be there in January.

India's statement closed with a standard sentence about close and longstanding energy cooperation. The operational sentence is the one that matters: 600 MW on one line, 54 MW on the other, 18 hours, four months, then a review. That is the size of the flood in megawatts.