Chairman’s Message

The Government of Nepal (GoN) has adopted a forward thinking approach to socio-economic development through implementation of large-scale infrastructures in the agriculture, transportation, aviation, health, education and tourism industries. Sustainable development of large scale infrastructures requires significant energy inputs, which has been a major bottleneck in the country. In fact, Nepal has been grappling with an energy crisis for over a decade in spite of a potential to generate large amounts of hydroelectricity from thousands of its rivers running down steep hills and mountains.Nepal’s current peak power demand in its national electricity grid is over 1,200 megawatts (MW) whereas its installed generation capacity is less than 800 MW. As around 95% of the country’s grid electricity is supplied through hydropower plants, in the dry season (December to April), due to low river flows, the generation capacity becomes less than 400 MW. The result is that grid connected consumers (which comprise 50% of the total population) suffer long hours of load-shedding and have become heavily dependent on expensive fossil fuel to meet their energy needs. The other 50% population is on permanent load shedding. Though the existing energy situation in Nepal appears dire, it also provides opportunities for hydropower developers to be involved.Nepal’s hunger for energy has grown so rapidly that its import of fossil fuel alone has surpassed its total exports. In the year 2020, the peak power demand in the national electricity grid is projected to soar upto 4,400 MW. If Nepal does not expedite hydropower development, its addiction to fossil fuel will deepen and further weaken the economy.

A handful of Non-Resident Nepalese (NRNs) were deeply concerned about the negative effect of Nepal’s worsening energy crisis but, at the same time, they were excited by GoN’s approach and its commitment to scale up the hydropower sector. This group of NRN decided to join the march in developing hydropower projects and, in the year 1999, they established “Sanima Hydropower Private Limited” (SHPL). As its premier hydropower project, SHPL successfully commissioned the “2.5 MW Sunkoshi Hydropower Plant” which has been supplying electricity to the national electricity grid since March 2005.The successful implementation of “Sunkoshi Hydropower Plant” encouraged us to retain and further enhance the technical expertise gained during the project’s detailed engineering design and construction supervision phases. These highly skilled and well trained technical staff would be the foundation for a sound engineering wing capable of undertaking turn-key hydropower projects in the future. This was how Sanima Hydro and Engineering Private Limited (SHEPL) was created and it has been in operation since 2005.Over the past 12 years, SHEPL has been providing good quality consultancy services in the hydropower sector, both at national as well as international levels. SHEPL has led project identification, pre-feasibility, feasibility and environmental impact studies of hydropower projects ranging from the large 1,110 MW “Sunkoshi II High Dam Project (Desk Study) for Asian Development Bank to the small 12 kW Odary Micro Hydropower Project for a local community. Another major milestone for SHEPL was in 2013 when we achieved ISO 9001:2008 certification. We believe this has further strengthened the quality of our services and our clients benefit from the resulting accuracy and efficiency.SHEPL has completed many projects and further details of these can be seen in this brochure. However, some noteworthy projects include:

Detailed feasibility and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies for the Upper (415 MW) and Middle (54 MW) Tamor Hydropower Projects.
Detailed engineering design and construction support of the 22 MW “Mai Hydropower Project” and “7 MW Mai Cascade Project” for “Sanima Mai Hydropower Limited”, another sister company of the Sanima Group.
Detailed engineering design and construction support of 14.9 MW Hewa Hydropower Project.
Currently, we are involved in detailed engineering design of 24.2 MW Likhu A Hydroelectric Projects, 40.27 MW Super Nyadi hydropower Project, 36MW Upper Balephi A Hydroelectric Project, Bheri Bapai diversion Multipurpose Project and Feasibility study and EIA of Kankai Multipurpose Project.

Internationally we have provided consulting services for hydropower projects in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya, Laos and United Kingdom.

To strengthen our international and national reputation, we are happy to announce a close association with a hydro engineering company in the United Kingdom. This year, “Hydroplan UK” has become a significant shareholder in SHEPL and we believe that this unique partnership will benefit all of our clients. With this partnership we expect to be more efficient and provide even higher quality services cost effectively to our clients in Nepal and internationally

I am confident that Nepal’s hydropower sector will benefit greatly from SHEPL’s insights and experience in the hydropower engineering services. I would like to thank our staff, shareholders and well wishers, whose support have led us to the forefront of Nepal’s hydropower sector. In the years to come, I look forward to your continued support as we grow together in the noble mission of energizing Nepal to meet its goal of sustainable socio-economic development as well as serving our clients beyond our borders.

Thanking you,
Tuk Prasad Paudel, Executive Chairman