ADB provides $ 130 m for power sector

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is lending $130 m to help Sri Lanka expand the reach and the quality of its electricity supply, with a focus on the North and the East.

It will also improve transmission and distribution network efficiency and develop renewable energy in other parts of the country. ADB’s Board of Directors has approved financing for the Clean Energy and Network Efficiency Improvement Project.

The project will fund transmission and distribution upgrades, and pilot solar rooftop power generation investments.“Long-term, Sri Lanka’s challenge is to cut dependence on costly and polluting fossil fuels, and to make its power network more efficient,” said Director of the Energy Division of ADB’s South Asia Department Yongping Zhai.

“This project will support those goals, aid poverty reduction, and provide new economic opportunities in the North and the East.”

The work will include new transmission and distribution lines, the construction and improvement of substations, and other network upgrades to reduce system losses.

A solar power generation trial will install rooftop panels in a number of locations including Colombo, and the Jaffna peninsula, with a total generating capacity of one megawatt by 2014.

The solar initiative will be developed as a public-private partnership with a $1.5 m credit line for private developers, and a $1.5 m grant from the multi-donor Clean Energy Fund under the Clean Energy Financing Partnership Facility, administered by the ADB.

The project will support the Government’s target of increasing national electrification from 91 percent in 2011 to 100 percent by 2015.It will also help increase the share of renewable energy in the national grid from 4.1 percent in 2007 to about 20 percent by 2020 and reduce network system losses from more than 14 percent in 2009 to 12 percent by 2020, as per the Government’s targets. Connecting solar power to the grid and lowering technical losses will enable Sri Lanka to avoid emissions of tens of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide a year, which otherwise would have been released under the current generation system.

The project is expected to be completed in December 2016. ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, it is owned by 67 members – 48 from the region. In 2011, ADB approvals including cofinancing totalled $21.7 b.

-ADB