President Mahinda Rajapaksa will declare open Sri Lanka’s first coal power plant – Lakvijaya, at Norochcholai, in the Puttalam District at 5.30 p.m. tomorrow.
Under Phase One of the project, 300 MW, which amounts to 17% of the national power requirement of the country, will be added to the National Grid.
This project was abandoned by the previous governments due to political expediency citing lame excuses such as environmental pollution, resentment of some communities etc., and instead allowed politically affable Private Sector firms to generate electricity using diesel at a high cost and sell power to the Electricity Board with substantial profit.
The plant will have its second and third phases at a cost of U.S. $ 455 million on a concessionary soft loan from China facilitated by China’s EXIM bank. The main contractor of the project is China National Machinery Import & Export Corporation. Upon completion of all the third and final phase, Lakvijaya will generate 900 MW power to the National Grid – more than half of the current power requirement. Coal for this project is obtained from Indonesia.