Long-term electricity generation planning - A way forward

By Asoka N. Abeygunawardene

The Government owned utility, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is the electricity supply monopoly in Sri Lanka. It is currently undergoing a severe financial crisis. The root cause of this financial crisis is high generation cost of electricity. Despite being a country with one of the highest electricity tariff in the region, the CEB is not in position to recover this high generation cost.

The recent drastic increase in cost of power generation is mainly attributable to a shift from hydro power to oil-based power generation.

Generating power from costly auto diesel is not the desired option for the country. Therefore, long-term generation expansion planning will be the key in overcoming the financial crisis faced by the CEB.

A newly drafted government energy policy, which includes a component on generation planning, is currently under consideration by the cabinet ministers for implementation. However, up until now, there has been no officially accepted electricity generation policy for Sri Lanka.

Only a draft document was available that was formulated by the Ministry of Power and Energy in the mid 1990s.

The CEB, in the absence of an entity engaged with power sector planning, and despite being considered as a commercial entity, over the last 15 years, has conducted studies on long-term electricity generation expansion planning for economic considerations as opposed to their own financial gains. The Transmission and Generation planning Branch of the CEB used the Wien Automatic System Planning Package (WASP 4), as developed by the International Atomic Energy Authority, for the development of the plan.

However, over the last 15 years, not a single long-term power plant option recommended by the CEB has been constructed. All plants which were established during this period were either short term measures or were not recommended by the CEBs Long Term Generation Expansion Plan. Even the Upper Kotmale hydro power plant which is currently under implementation was not recommended by the base case of LTGEP. The Energy Forum felt the reason these plans were not implemented was that they were formulated without taking account of key stakeholder opinions. As a result, important stakeholder parties used their influence to generate resistance that obstructed the plans being implemented.

Components of the study included WASP study, WADE study, MCA study and financial analysis. WASP study

The WASP4+ model was used in this study as a way of initiating a constructive dialog between the planners and the marginalized stakeholders. Starting with the CEB base-case the WASP4+ model ran nine other scenarios for accommodating the stakeholders concerns. WADE (World Alliance for Decentralized Energy) Study

The WASP analysis considers only central plants for power generation and has no specific emphasis towards point of generation. One of the key concerns of the stakeholders was the difference in impact between central plants and decentralized plants.

The three main advantages of decentralized power plants over the central power plants are less transmission and distribution losses, less required installed transmission and generation capacity, and less fuel consumption for combined industrial cooling and heating applications [Combined Heat & Power (CHP) and Combined Cooling, Heating and Power (CCHP) generation] due to on-site power generation.

The World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (WADE) developed computer model was used for analyzing the impact of the distributed energy concept to complement the results of the previously mentioned WASP study. WADE study considered Base Case Plan of the CEB's generation planning (CEB 2006) as the Central Generation (CG) case. The Decentralized Energy (DE) case was based on the on-site power projects that are planned over the coming years, and the potential for on-site Combined Heat and Power (CHP) applications on existing industrial sites where biomass or oil is currently being used for heating purposes. Dendro was considered as the source of energy for power generation for the base case.

Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA)

The aim of the MCA analysis was to directly interact with the key stakeholders and list and analyse concerns of different stakeholder groups while selecting the candidate power plant options. The MCA analysis concentrated on two basic factors: the measurable physical impacts and the concerns of different stakeholders.

The selected power sector stakeholders were from government institutions, private sector, civil society organizations and the representatives of direct victims of candidate power plants. The options appraised under the MCA study were Coal, Oil (gas turbine and combined cycle), Hydro, Dendro, Wind, and LNG.

Continued next week