Deficit of 500 megawatts forecast:

Will the lights go out

by Rukshana Rizwie

Sri Lanka faces an electricity shortage as the National Grid struggles to keep up with increasing growth. Will Sri Lankans have to invest in generators or will the new regime find ways to keep those lights on?

A looming power crisis is forcing the Ceylon Electricity Board to scramble in search of extraordinary measures to keep lights on in Sri Lanka at a time when the government has stalled the commissioning of new power plants.

Kamani Jayasekara, Deputy General Manager, Transmission and Generation Planning, Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) warned that a power crisis in 2018 and 2019 were imminent, certain and unstoppable. “Our peak demand on Wednesday (22) this week was 2,230 megawatts while the supply was 2,800 megawatts with a daily demand of 35 Gwh per day,” she said. “There will be an increase in demand, but as of now we cannot cater to it. By 2018 there’s going to be a deficit of 500 megawatts.”

500 megawatt deficit

Jayasekara said, unless the government does something now, any attempt to bridge the deficit in the system by that year would be futile. “There is a margin for a surge in demand, but we have little reserve in the system to balance it,” she added. This load shedding she says, will ultimately lead to power cuts that would be unstoppable and unfeasible to rectify instantly.

She said, the CEB cannot instruct the Mahaweli Authority to discharge water for power generation on their own because it’s the same reservoirs that disburse water for both drinking, domestic and irrigation upstream. “Every year, the coal power plant shuts down for 45 days for scheduled maintenance, at which time any surge could result in load shedding,” she said.

According to the CEB’s most recent statistics, as of last week, the country was depending 58% on hydro-powered plants, 33% on coal and 9% on oil and wind.

Japan yet to approve LNG proposal

While the Sri Lankan government has asked the Japanese government to convert its proposed 250 Megawatt coal power plant in Sampur to Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) what there has been no confirmation from the Japanese government, yet.

A similar request made to the Indian government regarding a proposed 250 Megawatt Power Plant in Sampur, too awaits final confirmation.

Environmental concerns prompted the government to convert both coal projects to cleaner LNG.

An official from the Power and Energy Ministry who spoke to the Sunday Observer said,

“Sampur is not a sensible location for an LNG plant. The ideal scenario is to have an LNG power plant at the load centre.” He said, “if we were to take it to Sampur we would have to spend millions of rupees on transmission lines and new infrastructure. Ultimately, the consumer will have to pay for that.”

He added that while oil prices may be low, experts have projected that prices will go up in the next few years. “With oil there is a question of fuel security,” he said. “At the same time Sri Lanka has never fully studied an LNG as the only option, which if we are to start now would take years to realize.”

He said, if we are to proactively pursue an LNG plant we will also need to set up a chemical industry, transportation and other infrastructure which is costly, as well as time consuming.

Asoka Abeygunawardana, Executive Director of the Energy Forum said, even if the government decided today to go ahead with a coal or LNG power plant, all efforts would not be able to halt a power crisis since it will take years before a plant is commissioned and made operable.

“If the government intends to have a fixed terminal, it will take at least four years for the construction to be complete. The only option would be to pursue a floating terminal instead of a fixed one, ” he said.

Questionable long term generation plan

“If we had forged ahead with the Long Term Generation Plan proposed by the CEB, we could have averted such a crisis,” said Abeyagunawardena. “Now we will have to look at an aggressive plan to increase 200 megawatts by 2018, and 300 megawatts by 2022.”

New plan

The Long Term Generation Plan prepared by the CEB was rejected by its regulator, the Public Utilities Commission (PUCSL) which found inconsistencies in the plan. The PUCSL has written to the CEB to clarify some of the proposals and revert back with the generation plan in April this year. An official at the CEB told the Sunday Observer that a new plan was being discussed, which has not been finalized yet.

Accelerating plans for diesel power plant

Energy Expert Dr. Thilak Siyambalapitiya said, the government will be seen fast tracking diesel powered plants if it were to stop the lights from fading out on the country.

“Diesel powered plants are expensive, but effective in emergency situations such as these,” he said, referring to the impending power crisis. “At present we are not going ahead with any of the planned power plants, neither do we have any new plants scheduled, which is a tragic reality.”

He added, it could have been easily averted if the government had let the CEB proceed with the construction of the power plant. “Politicians cannot calculate, we can, and so can the CEB. That’s how we know of the energy deficit and forecast it,” he said.