Kathmandu, Aug. 19:  India has allowed Nepal to export an additional 251 MW of electricity to the country, marking the first time the Himalayan nation will supply power to Bihar under a medium-term sales agreement, an official statement said on Monday.
    "India’s Designated Authority for Cross-Border Trade has approved an additional 251 MW of power exports from 12 hydropower projects in Nepal,” the Indian Embassy in Nepal said in a statement.
    With this, Nepal would be exporting 941 MW of hydropower from 28 projects. Earlier, Nepal was exporting 690 MW of electricity from 16 projects, it added.
    Even before this 251 MW approval, Nepal had already become a net exporter of electricity and net revenue generator in the last fiscal year, selling NPR 16.93 billion worth of electricity, the statement said.
    In October 2021, New Delhi approved 39 MW of electricity exports from Nepal to India for the first time, it said, adding that in less than three years, this figure has grown by more than 24 times.
    Nepal first started its power exports by selling in the Day Ahead Market of the Indian Energy Exchange. Since then, India has also granted access to the Real-Time Market.
    Nepal Electricity Authority has also entered into medium-term power sales agreements with discoms in Haryana and Bihar.
    India has also opened the provision of counting hydropower imports from Nepal as a part of the Hydropower Purchase Obligation (HPO) for buyers in India, which further incentivises buyers to purchase power from Nepal.
    India and Nepal had reached an agreement for long-term power trade that envisages the sale of up to 10,000 MW of power from Nepal to India in the next 10 years. This is the first year of the agreement and around 1,000 MW of exports have already been reached.
    An agreement for the sale of 40 MW of power to Bangladesh has also been finalised and was planned to be signed on July 28 but postponed due to the recent political developments in Bangladesh.
    With these developments, Nepal is now on track to become the leading hydropower exporter of the South Asian region.