Nepal’s 30,000 MW Power Ambition Won’t Work Without Private Investors, Says IPPAN Chief

Nepal’s headline-grabbing plan to generate 30,000 megawatts of electricity in the next decade is drawing a hard reality check from the country’s private power sector. Ganesh Karki, chairman of the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal (IPPAN), says the target is not realistic unless the government actively brings private developers into the center of the strategy.

Speaking at a public event in Kathmandu, Karki argued that private hydropower developers have already played a decisive role in helping Nepal move beyond chronic load shedding. He said the sector’s contribution shows that future growth in electricity generation will also depend on private investment, not just government ambition.

Why the target is under pressure

Nepal has set an aggressive goal of scaling up power generation over the next 10 years, with the broader policy direction aimed at turning the country into a major energy producer in South Asia. That vision has been framed around Nepal’s hydropower potential and rising regional demand, including interest from India and Bangladesh.

But IPPAN’s warning is straightforward: a target of this size needs more than speeches and policy announcements. It needs bankable projects, investor confidence, and a regulatory environment that reduces delays instead of creating them.

Karki said the government must create a more conducive climate for investment if it wants the 30,000 MW target to become more than a slogan. His remarks reflect a growing concern among developers that legal, procedural, and financial bottlenecks are slowing the pace of new projects.

The private sector’s bigger role

Private power producers have become a major force in Nepal’s electricity landscape. Their expansion has helped ease supply shortages and reduce the kind of blackouts that once defined daily life in the country.

That track record is central to IPPAN’s argument. If private developers were essential in ending widespread load shedding, they are likely to be just as important in the next phase, when Nepal tries to move from simply meeting domestic demand to building a large export-oriented power sector.

The challenge now is scale. Reaching 30,000 MW in a decade would require a much faster pace of project approval, financing, construction, and grid expansion than Nepal has historically managed.

What investors want

For developers and lenders, the key question is not whether Nepal has water resources. It does. The question is whether the system around those resources is stable enough to support large, long-term investment.

IPPAN has previously pushed for reforms such as temporary legal easing mechanisms to remove obstacles that slow hydropower development. That reflects a broader industry view that the biggest risks are often not engineering challenges, but policy inconsistency, permit delays, and uncertainty around power purchase agreements.

Karki’s latest remarks fit that pattern. The message is that Nepal’s energy ambitions are achievable only if the government treats private capital as a partner, not an afterthought.

What happens next

If Kathmandu wants to turn its energy strategy into a real growth story, it will need to convert ambition into practical incentives. That could mean clearer rules, faster approvals, stronger grid planning, and policies that make long-gestation projects more attractive to investors.

For now, the debate around Nepal’s 30,000 MW goal is not about whether the country should aim high. It is about whether the state is ready to build the conditions needed to actually get there.