Enough for the year, not for February

Across a year, Bhutan generates roughly twice what it uses. Across a February day, it cannot keep its own lights on without imports. The 2025 ledger shows both truths at once: record generation on Punatsangchhu-II’s first full year — and 1,102 GWh still bought back from India, often coal-fired, at two to three times the price the summer surplus earned.

The reason is physics, not policy: Bhutan’s plants are run-of-river, with no reservoir to bank the monsoon for winter. (The figures don’t sum exactly — domestic consumption includes the imported energy, and transmission losses take their share.)

Why the trade exists, why the widening gap is structural, and what could actually close it — storage, firm winter contracts, firm generation, honest winter pricing — is worked through in Sold Cheap, Bought Dear. The seasonal see-saw itself is Paradox #5; the buy-high-sell-low arithmetic is Paradox #63; the system it all sits in is The Water Economy.