Nepal has a hydropower addiction. Almost 100% of its electricity comes from the stuff, and it's so good at it that it rakes in nearly $200m (£147m) a year selling the excess to India and Bangladesh. But here's the catch: the glaciers and mountains that make this possible are melting faster than a snow cone in July, and last week's deadly floods have exposed the cracks in Nepal's all-in bet.
More than 1,300 people perished, with thousands more still unaccounted for. The floods - which obliterated entire villages near the Nepal-Tibet border - heavily damaged 12 hydropower plants in the Trishuli River basin and knocked out over 10% of Nepal's total power generation capacity. Operators are scratching their heads, unsure if any of these facilities can be revived.
The state-owned Nepal Electricity Authority, which owns six of the wrecked plants, insists households still have juice. But spokesman Rajan Dhakal admits that with climate disasters becoming as frequent as bad takes on social media, "the time has come for a rethink of our hydropower policy."
Let's rewind: In 2010, only two-thirds of Nepalis had electricity, and even the lucky ones faced blackouts of up to 16 hours a day. Then came a hydropower boom, anti-corruption efforts, and Indian energy imports to smooth out seasonal gaps. By 2018, most of Nepal enjoyed 24/7 power - a genuine triumph. Today, there are 225 hydropower plants with over 3,900MW of capacity, enough to light up some three million homes simultaneously. Hundreds more are in the pipeline, mostly perched high in the mountains where fast-flowing currents do the heavy lifting, no storage tanks required.
But here's the thing: high-altitude Himalayan regions are warming 50% faster than the global average, making them riskier than a skateboard trick on a tightrope. Preliminary investigations blame a collapsed glacier and its bedrock for last week's flash flood. Scientists are cautious about linking this specific event to climate change, but Nepal's Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority notes that over nine in ten disaster events from 2018 to 2024 were "related to climate."
Former Energy Minister Kulman Ghising, who dubbed the deluge a "once-in-a-century" event, says it's a lesson in plant design and site selection. "We need to design the plants [to be more] resilient to the floods and, most importantly, adopt early-warning systems as well as robust emergency evacuation measures," he told Mongabay. Potentially hundreds of hydropower workers, engineers, and residents are still trapped in mud-filled tunnels, adding a grim urgency to his words.
A "rethink" might mean reservoir-based plants that sit lower down, storing water for controlled release. But that comes with hefty economic and environmental price tags. Some folks wonder if Nepal has put too many eggs in one very wet basket. "We should not be putting all our eggs in one basket in these dangerous times," says Kushal Gurung, founder of WindPower Nepal. "We need to seriously embrace other alternatives as well, like solar and wind. And for that we will need to revise our energy policy that is at the moment very pro-hydropower."
Columbia University's Vivek Shastry agrees: "Meaningful additions of wind and solar generation is a resilience strategy that can limit single-point or interconnected electricity system failures in the future." A German aid agency report suggests Nepal's solar potential is roughly ten times its hydropower capacity. But Puspa Sharma of the National University of Singapore warns that diversification can go "only to a limited extent." Hydropower, he notes, gives Nepal a massive competitive edge over its South Asian neighbors.
Despite the risks, hydropower still dominates big investments. The Upper Trishuli-1 project - now nearly destroyed - was one of Nepal's largest foreign direct investments, valued at around $647m, backed by the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation. The Upper Trishuli 3A, also severely hit, was funded by China's Export-Import Bank. Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People says international lenders were "acutely aware of the extreme danger to which they were exposing thousands of labourers, officials, residents, rivers, infrastructure and landscape." Their own reports flagged the risks, but they didn't demand stringent safeguards or prepare for the inevitable.
The Trishuli basin has a history of volatility. In September 2024, a cloudburst triggered flash floods in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading - areas hit again last week. In July 2025, a glacial lake burst in Tibet's Gyirong county, killing at least 11 and halting trade along the Nepal-China corridor for nearly six months until the border reopened on 1 January this year.
Dhakal admits that even with proper climate risk assessments, "the designing of the plants may not have been done accordingly." Private operators are feeling the financial sting: insurers have paid out around $40m for flood damage to over 20 privately owned plants in the last three years, according to Uttam Bhlon Lama of the Independent Power Producers' Association. Premiums are skyrocketing, making business "unfeasible."
Manjeet Dhakal, a member of Nepal's climate delegation at the UN Climate Change Conference, argues this disaster is a global problem. "Nepal is among the least responsible for the greenhouse emissions that led to these exacerbated risks. Ironically, our hydropower industry is an attempt to reduce our already minimal emissions... We cannot, and should not, be made to respond to these risks alone."
Indeed, the Himalayas are melting, the rivers are raging, and Nepal's energy strategy is stuck in a flood zone. Time to diversify, folks - and maybe invest in a good weather app.