Culpability!

Who will take the blame or be held responsible for last week's power debacle? :

By Rukshana Rizwie

The Norochcholai power plant (Pix by Wasitha Patabendige)

Power and Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya is seen here at the Control Room of the Norochcholai Power Plant which he visited this week on an inspection tour

Those who remember engineer D.J. Wimalasurendra, the statesman, would also know that 2018 marks a centenary since his concept of using hydropower to add a high mega output of electricity to the national grid was proposed. At a time when Sri Lanka is plagued with power outages for days on end, there is lateral thinking that he may have been right, if only those at the helm gave ear to his concept.

Bill to hold engineers responsible

A new Bill will be drafted and passed in Parliament soon holding engineers and related officials responsible for any power failure in the country. The decision comes in the wake of the continued power cuts experienced across the island.

The absence of any person taking responsibility for the failure led to the move to introduce the Bill that will hold engineers and officials responsible for power supply or for any power outage.

This past week, the corridors of power at the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the Ministry of Power and Energy have been replete with talks on fast-tracking the work which has begun at Sampur for the Indian backed 500 megawatt coal power plant in Norochcholai. Authoritative sources at the Ministry of Power and Energy told the Sunday Observer discussions were under way for a second power plant of 500 MW, a joint venture between the National Thermal Power Corporation of India and the CEB which would be funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency.

"There's no point in blaming engineers, because systems such as governing control systems that 'sense' changes in frequencies and demand are automated, so when these falter, the entire system is affected," said President of the CEB Engineers' Union, Athula Wanniarachchi,

Blame game

Wanniarachchi also noted that the power failure issue is being arbitrarily used to score political points. "There is talk of an engineer who had sent a report on maintenance work allegedly for the Biyagama station where a transformer caught fire. However the document does not specifically mention the Biyagama station," he said.

Wanniarachchi added that it was easier for officials to play the blame game than own up to mistakes. "Sri Lanka has an isolated power system. The Norochcholai coal power plant was not built to international standards, simply because this is not a requirement for the Chinese manufacturers," he said.

Sri Lanka's electricity sector was already in disrepair before the third islandwide power cut in a short span of six months, caused by a fire at the Biyagama station and exacerbated by technical failure at the Norochcholai power plant causing further damage.

The power failures exposed a glaring vulnerability of the rotten infrastructure in the power sector.

The technical fault appears to lie in the national transmission grid which links local electricity stations. CEB Chairman, engineer Anura S Wijayapala said Sri Lanka experienced the highest demand for energy during the past week and the stations may have 'tripped' by a surge in demand for power.

Engineers have to take responsibility

Wijayapala who also served as the Vice Chairman at the CEB made a startling decision, when he announced his resignation on Sunday due to the failure of the CEB to curb power outages.

"Someone has to take responsibility," he said. "I can't ask the engineers to resign I can only sack them, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to set an example."

His decision to resign sent shock waves and ruffled a few feathers in the higher echelons of the state. While his resignation was flatly refused, he remained steadfast in his decision.

"I am a senior lecturer at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Moratuwa University.

I take pride in that post and lived on that salary. I am at the CEB to take policy decisions on behalf of the government. This is a service we offer and one that we need to take seriously," he said.

Rs 8 billion loss

However, Wijayapala remained optimistic, citing that the Norochcholai plant which was resumed on Wednesday night would make up for the shortage of 300 megawatts in the national grid and ensure an uninterrupted electricity supply.

Recently, however, it was revealed that the CEB had spent an additional Rs. eight billion due to the delay in the maintenance schedule at one unit in the Norochcholai coal power plant.

"If you look closely at the issues related to the Norochcholai power plant, you will find that although it was commissioned in 2011, it functioned for five years straight without any major maintenance work," he said. "Manufactures said we took too long to service it and should have serviced it on a regular basis. Due to the shortage of skilled workers and delays from the constructors, the project lagged on."

Director General of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) Damith Kumarasinghe said the CEB has been advised against passing on the burden of recovering the rupees eight billion loss from the consumers.

Report on March 22

Power and Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya told the ministerial committee appointed to probe the recent islandwide electrical breakdown and recommend short-term solutions to avoid such situations. He said the report would be handed over to President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Tuesday, March 22.He said that the job of the committee would be to recommend short-term solutions within a week and long-term solutions within three months.

Norochcholai working to schedule

Meanwhile, authoritative sources based at the Norochcholai plant said the plant which resumed operations on Wednesday evening was working fine. "Unit 2 and Unit 3 would be started this week. If the plant functions without a glitch, we won't have any more islandwide power failures. But if it defaults then the power cuts will prevail."

Radical measures

The Ministry of Defence on Thursday directed the Tri-Forces to guard all installations connected to the national grid to guard against acts of sabotage. Troops from the army, navy and air force were deployed on Wednesday to provide security to all hydro power stations and grid sub-stations of the CEB.

Secretary to the Ministry of Power and Energy, Dr. B.M.S Batagoda said "These radical measures were not necessarily due to fears of sabotage. We are taking every possible measure to ensure that nothing goes wrong in the next few days and weeks ahead of the New Year," he said.

"We are hopeful that there will not be anymore power failures, since Norochcholai is working fine. However, we will meet today and next week to review the situation."

Manitoba HVDC Research Centre

PUSL has also filed a report on the power cuts experienced in September last year, which was prepared in consultation with experts from the Manitoba HVDC Research Centre. One of the three proposed recommendations was to ensure that all power stations have their generators on Automatic Voltage Regulator(AVR) control and that that the reactor power limits of the generators are not curtailed. This implies that the AVR 'senses' changes in output voltages.

The measures were proposed as a short-term for a quick fix due to the recent power failures, discussions have been initiated to conduct a thorough technical research on the power installations.

Swift reforms needed

Ananda Wimalaratne, a retired employee of the CEB and convenor of the supplies union suggested that reforms were urgently required at the CEB.

"If a fire in a transformer at one station could cripple the entire sector and cause an islandwide power failure, then it's a sign that our engineers are not working hard enough and that the sector needs a complete overhaul."