Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Load Shedding Schedule, Nepal, 11 January 2009


Last week the government announced new cut backs in electricity service, reducing hours of electric service from 12 to 8 hours per day. I live in the area represented by the first row in the schedule below (courtesy of Geshan Manandhar), a schedule that in listing the hours when power is not available doesn't quite give you a clear picture of day-to-day life. Assuming you sleep from 22:00 – 06:00 (which seems to be the case for most Nepalis, with an hour more or less on either side), the waking hours per week in which you would have electricity would be 38. Your electric-available times would look like this:

  • Sunday & Monday: 08:00-12:00, 20:00-22:00 (6 hours per day, 12 a week)
  • Tuesday & Wednesday: 12:00-16:00 (4 hours per day 8 a week)
  • Thursday-Saturday: 06:00-08:00, 16:00-20:00 (6 hours per day, 18 a week)

On Monday traffic was shut down in the city by students demonstrating against the new power schedule. The government blamed the lack of rain and the poor management of the previous government. Sales of generators, petrol and inverters are up. Everyone complains. Fortunately, I'm involved in an activity that doesn't require even a single watt of electricity, unless you care to paint after dark.

One positive development from all this: television stations have cut back hours of broadcast.

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