Demand and Electrification
Who uses Nepal's electricity, how much is used, and where access, reliability and productive electrification remain distinct questions.
- Page status
- Verified core
- Updated
- 2026-11-04
- Last reviewed
- 2026-11-04
- Review due
- 2027-02-04
Current demand
In FY 2025/26, NEA reports 12,376 GWh of domestic consumption including its own use (+9%) and 5.927 million consumers; domestic consumers took 42% of consumption and industry 36%, while domestic customers were 90.64% of connections (NEA Annual Report FY 2025/26, PDF p.13). For FY 2024/25, NEA reported 11,288 GWh of electricity sales and 5,707,528 consumers. Domestic customers account for 91.08% of connections and 42.02% of sales. Industry accounts for 1.23% of customers and 36.64% of sales. Commercial, non-commercial and other categories make up the balance.
Per-capita electricity use reached 496 kWh in FY 2025/26, from 465 kWh a year earlier. The 2,479 MW national peak (28 June 2026) is distinct from the 3,226 MW system peak (6 July 2026), which includes export load in the annual-report framing.
Electrification has several layers
Grid coverage measures network reach. Sales measure metered use. Reliable service measures continuity and quality. Productive electrification asks whether electricity displaces other fuels or enables economic activity. None is a substitute for the others.
Electric cooking illustrates the distinction. The national 0.5% household baseline is from 2021; a 2025 World Bank report corroborates only that the share remained below one percent, not a new exact annual value. This wiki does not present an unsourced demand-conversion scenario as observed demand. See World Bank Economics of Household Cooking Using Electricity in Nepal.
Electricity within the wider energy system
The WECS FY2079/80 energy balance puts grid electricity at 7.23% of final energy, compared with 63.87% traditional biomass and 25.80% commercial fuels. This older, whole-energy accounting frame should not be blended with the FY2024/25 electricity-sales snapshot. It does show why network reach alone is not evidence that cooking, transport, heat and industrial fuel use have already electrified. See WECS Energy Sector Synopsis Report 2024 and Nepal Final Energy Mix.
Evidence trail
| Question | Dated observation | Interpretation boundary |
|---|---|---|
| How much electricity was used? | 12,376 GWh domestic consumption incl. NEA use in FY 2025/26; 11,288 GWh sold in FY 2024/25 | Annual sales do not show hourly or seasonal load shape |
| Who bought it? | Domestic: 91.08% of connections and 42.02% of sales; industry: 1.23% and 36.64% | Customer-category totals do not show service quality or end use |
| How large was peak demand? | 2,479 MW national peak; 3,226 MW system peak including export load (FY 2025/26) | The two peak definitions are not interchangeable |
| How deep is whole-economy electrification? | Grid electricity: 7.23% of final energy in WECS FY2079/80 | Different year and energy-balance denominator from NEA sales |
| How current is the cooking baseline? | 0.5% in 2021; described only as below 1% in the reviewed 2025 report | No current annual adoption series |
Official direction
Nepal's NDC 3.0 targets electric cookstove use in 2.1 million households and 15,000 institutions and firms by 2035, alongside industrial electrification and demand-side management. These are policy targets and require appliance finance, tariffs, adequate feeders, service reliability and customer adoption.
Evidence gaps
- Public hourly and seasonal load by customer class.
- Feeder-level hosting capacity for cooking, transport and industry.
- Current electric-cooking adoption and appliance-use data.
- Metered demand response and time-of-use response.
- A reconciled view of electricity as a share of final energy by use.
Related
Domestic Electricity Demand Distribution · Nepal Final Energy Mix · Distribution and Reliability · Decision Dossier — Electric-Cooking Evidence Gate and Pilot