Langtang Microhydro Electricity Project

In Context

• The Langtang Microhydro Electricity Project was built three years after the 2015 earthquake-avalanche with help from the Hong Kong-based Kadoorie Charitable Foundation. 

About Langtang Microhydro Project.

• It costs $530,000 and has a weir and spillway at the moraine, and the water is taken through a fibre glass-insulated penstock pipe to a powerhouse that generates 100kW of electricity.
• It will be providing 24 hours of electricity to 120 households and tourist lodges in Kyanjin and Langtang.
• Benefits: 
  • The project is the first-of-its-kind in Nepal to power a village and holds promise for other remote Himalayan valleys where the risk posed by expanding glacial lakes can be mitigated, while at the same time providing electricity to tourism-dependent families.

• Risk: 

• The only downside would be that most glacial lakes are at very high elevations where there are few settlements, and also the greater cost of transporting equipment by helicopter.
  •  But if the risk-reduction from glacial lake outburst floods is factored in, these multi-purpose projects would be cost-effective.

Source: DTE