What We Do
Market Development
AEPC and NREP will implement and provide Technical Assistance for activities designed to assess, develop and finance distributed renewable energy (DRE) projects in high-priority markets such as Commercial & Industrial missing middle markets, small businesses, health centres, schools and households. Ideally many of these projects will be formed as Public-Private Partnerships which leverage the assets and investments of Provincial and Local Governments to de-risk and mobilize private sector investment.
A critical mechanism to achieve DRE projects goals is the Sustainable Energy Challenge Fund (SECF), being implemented under AEPC’s Central Renewable Energy Fund (CREF), to provide Viability Gap Funding (VGF) to make marginally feasible projects bankable. Once operational, the SECF will utilize a market based approach to incentivizing DRE using VGF-based financial assistance—for projects that provide the highest levels of installed capacity with the least amount of SECF funding—e.g., in the following modalities:
using financing models such as:
- Power Project Financing
- RESCO and leasing service models
- Interest rate buy-down
- Incentives based on energy generation
- Demand aggregation, e.g., for clean cooking solutions and M/SMEs
This competitive, targeted Financial Assistance is complemented by NREP’s Technical Assistance in activities such as:
- Detailed Feasibility Studies (DFS), pre-feasibility studies, simulation modelling (e.g., PV Syst, HOMER, PSS/E), land siting and DRE sizing studies, and other measures to assess the technical and economic feasibility of DRE projects
- Capacitation of Public and Private Sectors on how to develop DRE Projects for commercial, institutional, and industrial markets
- Developing an evidence base to help decision-makers make informed decisions that will help Nepal diversify its generation profile to make the country more resilient and self-sufficient.
Universal Energy Access
NREP plans to increase energy access to 95,000 households in rural, remote regions of Nepal with electric-cooking technology that uses clean hydropower or solar energy, in place of traditional cooking techniques based on biomass sources such as dung and firewood. So-called “e-cooking” will help significantly reduce indoor pollution and increase socio-economic opportunity and quality of life.
NREP will also assess and help develop micro-hydro and solar mini-grids to help achieve greater levels of energy access.
Cross-cutting
The core objective of this component is to provide technical assistance to analyze and develop policies, regulations, acts, business plans, and stakeholder engagement strategies that will increase the installation of distributed renewable energy (DRE) projects in a sustainable manner, e.g., with enduring transformational ways that Nepal promotes DRE.
Specific strategies include:
- Increasing the levels of private sector investment of DRE
- Developing capacity in public sector entities such as MoPIDS to develop DRE project in the “missing middle” commercial, institutional, and industrial markets
- Planning, tracking and reporting on the sustained impact and cost-effectiveness of the programme
- Enhancing gender, social, economic and environmental equity in all NREP activities and outcomes
- Developing and implementing an awareness campaign to change the public perception of DRE