Traditional unrefined or unprocessed energy sources are heavily used by most non-electrified rural communities. These energy sources include firewood, agricultural residues, animal waste and coal to meet daily energy needs for cooking, heating and lighting. Nepal is one of the least developed countries in the world with 83% of the population living in rural areas. The energy consumption pattern in Nepal is negligible, unreliable and dominated by traditional biomass based power generation. The rural population of Gorkha has been forced to use inefficient and health-threatening solid biomass energy for their domestic purposes, due to lack of financial and technical capabilities. Nepal consists of water resources estimated to have a theoretical hydroelectric potential of 83,000 megawatts, of which only 42,000 megawatts is accessible. However, despite the country's great potential in hydropower, it has not been able to effectively utilize this energy due to financial and technical limitations. Forests, which represent a major biomass energy resource, have already been used beyond their sustainable capacity and are becoming a scarce resource