Upper Kotmale on two-week test run

by P. Krishnaswamy

Commercial operations of the first unit of the Upper Kotmale Hydro Power Project (UKHP), which was commissioned to the national grid last Wednesday, will be taken over after a two-week test run, Project Director Shavindranath Fernando told the Sunday Observer.

The first unit has added 75 MW of power to the national grid and the second unit, generating another 75 MW, will be commissioned in the first week of May, marking the successful completion of the Rs.40 billion Japanese-funded hydro power project that is a Sri Lankan engineering feat, he said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa, upon coming to power in 2005, initiated immediate measures for work on the project to be started.