The Sanjen Hydropower Project, built by Chilime's subsidiary Sanjen Hydroelectric Company Limited, has been commercially connected to the national system. After completion of all the technical tests, the electricity system of Sanjen hydropower project has been started from Monday evening.

The Sanjen hydropower project had been producing test products since the 8th of November last year. The capacity of the project, which was built at Amachodingmo-5 in Rasuwa, is 42.5 megawatts. All technical tests were completed and electricity was produced from the first unit on 8th of December. Ravin Koirala, sub-engineer of the project, informed that the produced electricity has been made commercially available on the national transmission line since Monday.

Among the two semi-reservoir projects built in the 'Cascade Model', the Sanjen (Upper) Hydropower Project was completed in the end of August 2080 and has been providing electricity to the national system since October 21, 2080.

was supplying electricity commercially through an emergency transmission line with a total capacity of 11 KV. For the electricity supply of the project, the company itself had constructed eight kilometers of 11 KV double circuit transmission line and 132/11 KV substation.

Chilime Trishuli 66 KV transmission line was selling about 8.5 megawatts of electricity as an alternative due to capacity limitations. According to the project office, both Sanjen and Sanjen (upper) projects could not be completed on time due to the earthquake of 2072, covid-19, blockade, non-availability of the national transmission line. 

Recently, as soon as the Chilime-Trishuli 220 kV transmission line was completed, the company said that it was able to generate electricity from that project and connect it to the national transmission line.

According to the company, Sanjen is a model project among semi-reservoir projects under construction in Nepal. About  A 'picking pond' has been constructed that can easily power the national electricity system for 70 minutes by collecting 44,000 cubic meters of water.

The chief executive officer of the project, Arpan Bahadur Singh, informed that by storing the water of the pond, more electricity can be generated in the evening and a significant contribution can be made to the national electricity system. Because of the said picking pond, the powerhouse can be operated for project maintenance and even in 'emergency breakdown'.

Among the cascade projects in Nepal, Sanjen is the first project in Nepal where the lower project can continuously generate electricity even when the upper project is being maintained by installing special technology. This technology, which was installed for the first time as a model technology in Nepal, can be installed by other cascade projects in the future and the dependence of the lower project of the cascade on the upper project can be reduced.

Due to a kind of state-of-the-art technology equipment manufactured in Germany, the company will get great financial relief by stopping the damage caused by the project maintenance time. Due to the same feature, Kathmandu University has also conducted a prototype of the project in its laboratory.

As this model project is currently among the cascade projects developed in Nepal, the project said that it can be used for experimental studies of students studying hydropower development, renewable energy, hydrology, sustainable development and other subjects.