Nepal Energy Wiki
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Layer: Priority Watchlist

Page status
Working page
Updated
2026-05-13

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Explorer label: Priority projects
Layer group: Hydropower layers
Feature count: 12

Curated strategically important projects by size, storage value, basin leverage, financing, or transmission dependence.

Summary

This layer contains a curated watchlist of hydropower projects that remain visible as strategic map anchors. It is a reading layer for projects with disproportionate relevance to seasonal value, grid constraints, basin position, delivery risk, or export context.

What It Represents

The priority watchlist is a hand-picked set of hydropower projects that should stay visible even when the wider operating, generation-license, and survey clouds are switched off. It is not meant to be exhaustive. It is a reading layer for projects that carry disproportionate analytical weight in the wiki's core argument about seasonal value, grid constraints, and delivery risk.

The layer deliberately mixes two kinds of records:

Group Projects Why They Stay Visible
Priority operating / buildout Upper Bhotekoshi, Kali Gandaki A, Andhi Khola, Upper Tamakoshi, Tanahu, Upper Trishuli-1 Operating or generation-stage anchors that make the abstract system argument concrete: visible sites, central corridors, storage relevance, or large commissioned capacity.
Radar survey Nalsyau Gad, Mugu Karnali Storage, Arun 3, Upper Karnali, Betan Karnali, Phukot Karnali Survey-stage projects that shape the long-run strategic map because of size, basin position, storage value, export relevance, or Karnali/Koshi corridor leverage.

This is the layer to use when the map needs a strategic reading list rather than a licensing inventory. It links the project geography to articles such as Storage Deficit, Installed MW, Energy, Seasonality, and Firm Power Are Routinely Conflated, Transmission and Delivery Are Material Immediate Monetization Constraints, and Twenty-Year Strategy.

Included Projects

Project MW River / Basin Signal Status Why It Is On The Watchlist
Upper Bhotekoshi 45 Bhote Koshi Operation Existing valley plant with legible site geometry; useful for checking whether mapped hydro points behave like real assets.
Kali Gandaki A 144 Kali Gandaki Operation Major operating Gandaki anchor and benchmark for the older public hydro fleet.
Andhi Khola 9.4 Andhi Khola / Gandaki Operation Small operating plant, but analytically important because Andhi Khola also appears in storage-comparison work.
Upper Tamakoshi 456 Tama Koshi Generation Largest commissioned domestic project in the stack; a required reference point for capacity versus delivered value.
Tanahu 140 Seti Khola / Gandaki Generation Most practical near-term new storage addition in the checked official set.
Upper Trishuli-1 216 Trishuli Generation Central-north project tied to the Trishuli evacuation corridor and grid-first reading of project value.
Nalsyau Gad 410 Nalsyau / Karnali Survey Best dry-energy performer in the JICA promising-storage set.
Mugu Karnali Storage 1,902 Karnali Survey Largest survey-stage project in the registry and a headline test case for capacity, storage, and remoteness.
Arun 3 900 Arun / Koshi Survey National-scale eastern corridor project with export and construction-system implications.
Upper Karnali 900 Karnali Survey Strategic Karnali project whose value depends as much on politics, financing, and evacuation as on MW.
Betan Karnali 688 Karnali Survey Large Karnali-basin candidate relevant to the storage-and-seasonality story.
Phukot Karnali 426 Karnali Survey Major Karnali project with a stronger document-backed project-area anchor than many survey records.

How To Read It

Turn this layer on first when orienting around the power-system map. Then add operating hydropower, survey-stage hydropower, storage shortlist, transmission corridors, and cross-border interconnections to see what each priority marker depends on.

The most important fields are:

Field How To Use It
group / group_label Separates current-system anchors from long-run radar projects.
Capacity (capacity_mw) Shows scale, but should be read against storage, dry energy, and evacuation context.
Status (license_type) Distinguishes operating or generation-stage assets from survey-stage possibilities.
Why it matters (priority_read) Gives the editorial reason the project was promoted into the watchlist.
Location source (location_basis) Explains whether the marker comes from a registry point, a document-backed anchor, or a river-aligned reference.
precision_label Tells the reader how much locational confidence to attach to the marker.

The watchlist is also a navigation device. If a marker raises a question, the next step is usually an entity page, a corridor page, or a concept page rather than another marker layer.

Coverage / Method

The layer covers 12 project features in priority_project_watchlist.geojson. Projects were selected from operating, generation-stage, and survey-stage records based on the layer's stated analytical criteria: size, storage value, basin leverage, financing relevance, transmission dependence, and map-reading value.

Caveats

The watchlist is editorial. It is not a ranking by commercial readiness, social acceptability, government priority, benefit-cost ratio, or environmental acceptability. It reflects the analytical frame of this wiki: winter value, system bottlenecks, geopolitical leverage, and delivery risk.

Survey-stage markers should not be read as precise dam coordinates unless the Location source (location_basis) says so. Several records are river-aligned references built from public project data, not site-grade engineering linework. That is intentional: the layer is for strategic map reading, while project-level due diligence still requires the underlying feasibility, EIA, RAP, licensing, and transmission documents.

Linked Data

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