The Asian Development Bank (ADB) handed over its pilot project on wind solar hybrid energy system to Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) of the Ministry of Environment at a function organised at the Nepal Resident Mission in the capital on Monday.

The wind-solar hybrid system was installed in Dhaubadi village of Nawalparasi district in December 2011 under ADB’s regional technical assistance (RETA) for Effective Development of Distributed Small Wind Power Systems in Asian Rural Areas for which the AEPC was the implementing agency in Nepal.

The $3.8 million RETA was part of ADB’s "Energy For All" initiative that supports increasing access to energy in remote rural areas. Along with Nepal, the RETA covers Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Maldives.

“The Project is now providing electricity services to 46 rural households of Dhaubadi. This was the pilot project for the hybrid wind and solar system in Nepal."

The success of this project has demonstrated that it is indeed viable to provide reliable energy access to rural Nepal through solar wind hybrid systems as one of the clean energy options,” said Kenichi Yokoyama, ADB’s Country Director for Nepal, speaking at the event.

He also said that the lessons learned from this project will be very useful in scaling up the systems across Nepal, as well as in other developing member countries of ADB.

The project is based on ‘energy systems’ planning approach and has installed two sets of 5 kW wind turbines complimented by 2 kWp of solar PV panels to satisfy the village’s electricity demand of 43.6 KWh per day.

The transfer document was signed by Yongping Zhai, Director, Energy Division, South Asia Department, ADB and Ram Prasad Dhital, Acting Executive Director, AEPC which marked the official handover of the wind-solar hybrid system from ADB to AEPC starting June 13, 2014.