How much electricity will Nepal need from India this winter?

Nepal's grid is almost all run-of-river hydro. In winter (Nov–Apr) the rivers run low, generation falls, and Nepal buys power from India. This site forecasts that winter need from 16 years of weather and river data, NEA's own reports, and India's customs records, and shows the evidence behind every number.

Import Jan–Apr 2027

GWh

flood-adjusted forecast

Without the flood

GWh

models only: +% from flood losses

Capacity lost (Aug 2026 flood)

MW

MW destroyed, rest cut off

Winter demand Nov–Apr

GWh

within 1% of the GDP-growth path

The story in four points

  1. Demand is not the problem: supply is. Monsoon demand is higher than winter demand, but in the monsoon Nepal exports. In winter it imports, because the rivers are low (Analysis).
  2. Rivers drive imports. Domestic generation follows river flow (correlation 0.82), and imports move the other way (−0.77). GloFAS forecasts this winter's rivers 13–30% below normal from January (Forecast).
  3. The August 2026 flood changed the picture. About 510 MW of hydro and solar was destroyed or cut off, and Kulekhani, the only storage reservoir, is running down. No model can learn this from history, so it is added explicitly from a sourced register (Map, Forecast).
  4. Simple models win here, and we show why. Ridge regression beats every baseline for daily demand (2.5% error next day, 5–8% at 30 days). LightGBM was tested and lost, which is expected on two winters of data (Models, Method).