Environmental research

This project has been initiated in 4 remote Village Development Committees (VDCs) of two accessible districts namely Palpa and Lamjung. The main objectives of this project is to install 450 Solar Home System (SHS) replacing the use of Kerosene and fatwood. US$ 35,000 (70%) of the total fund is allocated as Community Environment Trust Fund (CETF) a revolving fund to avail loan for the community people. Of the four VDCs, Siluwa and Gandakot lie in Palpa district where as remaining two VDCs namely Neta and Dhuseni lie in Lamjung district of Western Development Region of Nepal. According to the District Profile, PDDP, 2000, the total number of households (Hh) in the project VDCs Siluwa, Gandakot, Neta and Dhuseni are 859, 604, 382 and 318 respectively. Of the total 2163 Hh, 2132 Hh (98%) use kerosene for lighting purpose. This figure indicates the need of alternative energy for lighting purpose and the SHS is the cheaper and user friendly as compared to other alternative energy such as hydropower (micro-hydro and peltric set) The project has capitualised the CBOs formed by Centre for Community Development and Research (CCODER) in Palpa but formed CBOs in Lamjung. In Lamjung the project has formed 6 CBOs incorporating at least 80% HH in a CBO. The project has formed two CETF monitoring Committee in two districts and also formed 4 Solar Home System Functional Group to initiate the installation of SHS. Upto now the project has facilitated installing a total of 470 SHSs (240 in Palpa, 230 in Lamjung) benefitting 2990 population.The capacity of these SHS ranges from 12 to 50 Watt and the total power generation capacity is a little above 9KW. Likewise, the project is also successful in installing 128 ICS in the project VDCs.

Nepal