Arun 3

Summary

Nepal's single largest project under construction — a 900 MW peaking run-of-river scheme on the Arun River in Sankhuwasabha, developed by India's state utility SJVN through SAPDC. The project is under construction, but the wiki no longer presents September 2026 as a firm commissioning date: public percentages and schedule statements use different dates and scopes, and the 217 km evacuation line must be tracked separately from the generating works.

Specifications

Engineering

Arun-3 is designed as a peaking RoR plant — 3.4 hours of full rated output per day, delivered through an underground powerhouse with four Francis turbines. This means its 900 MW nameplate translates into a much smaller day-long energy contribution than its capacity suggests. Compare with Upper Tamakoshi (456 MW continuous RoR) for the contrast in fleet-shape implications.

Output

SJVN's current project description gives design energy of 4,018.87 GWh in a 90%-dependable year. The PDA includes a 21.9% free-energy share for Nepal; the timing and dependable capacity value of that energy should not be inferred from the annual GWh figure alone.

Financial

Arun-3 is structured as a 30-year BOOT concession. The current dossier does not use a single project-wide progress percentage to infer the financial or commissioning position because civil works, generation equipment and evacuation have different delivery paths.

Governance

SJVN, an Indian state utility, develops, owns, and operates the project through its subsidiary SAPDC. This is the reference case for India-developed export-first hydropower in Nepal — a structure that the Domestic-Led Hydro Strategy thesis argues against for strategic capacity control.

Schedule

Earlier commissioning targets have moved. A reliable current forecast requires separate dated milestones for the generating works and the 217 km 400 kV evacuation component.

Current Status and Performance Provenance

As of 10 July 2026: under construction. SJVN recorded a management review on 8 December 2025, but that event does not supply a comparable project-wide progress denominator.

Recent Updates

Active Blockers

Significance

Arun-3 is the archetype of Nepal's India-developed export-first project class. Under the 2014 Project Development Agreement, SJVN builds, owns and operates the plant for 30 years, gives Nepal 21.9% of the energy as royalty-free share, offers another 10% on commercial terms, and takes the remainder to the Indian grid — a structure that makes Arun-3 the reference case when discussing Hydro-Geopolitics in the basin.

It also changes the shape of Nepal's fleet, not just the size. Arun-3 is designed as a peaking RoR plant — 3.4 hours of full rated output per day, not continuous. So its 900 MW nameplate translates into a much smaller day-long energy contribution than its capacity suggests. That matters because Nepal's structural problem isn't capacity; it's Seasonal Mismatch and Firm Power deficits in dry months, which a peaking RoR plant can help with only to the extent the transmission system can absorb concentrated evening blocks.

Compared to Upper Tamakoshi — which is Nepali-developed, Nepali-dispatched, and continuous-RoR at 456 MW — Arun-3 is larger but strategically narrower: more export value than domestic reliability value.

Limitations & Controversies

Repeated schedule changes. Earlier commissioning targets have moved. The current page therefore treats target dates as dated events, not as a guaranteed operating date.

Evacuation dependency. The 217 km 400 kV evacuation component is a separate critical path. A current component-level percentage is needed before its readiness can be compared with the generating works.

Free power as compensation theory. The 21.9% free share is the political justification for allowing the dominant share of the energy and revenue to accrue to India. Whether 21.9% is a good deal for Nepal depends on (a) the counterfactual — would the project have been built by a Nepali developer at all, and on what timeline — and (b) how the free share interacts with dry-season Firm Power accounting, which Arun-3's peaking design constrains.

Official Visual References

SAPDC's monthly progress reports are a materially better official visual source than the generic Arun riverside imagery that often gets used as a placeholder for the project. The February 2023 report cover contains a compact one-page schematic tying together the intake, headrace, surge shaft, powerhouse and tailrace alignment.

Source: SAPDC monthly progress report up to 28 February 2023 (PDF)

See also

• Koshi Basin
• Upper Tamakoshi
• Hydro-Geopolitics
• Stranded Generation
• Firm Power
• Seasonal Mismatch
• Inaruwa–Purnea 400 kV Cross-Border Interconnection — the 400 kV line being built to evacuate Arun-3

Sources

• SJVN Arun III HEP Project Record
• Arun-3 Project Status & PDA Summary (2025)
• NEA Annual Report FY 2024/25
• JICA IPSDP Final Report Annexes (Vol. 2)