CEB admits Mannar Wind Power farm not fully connected to national grid

By Ifham Nizam

The Ceylon Electricity Board engineers had failed to supply the much-needed 100MW from the Mannar Wind Power farm to the national grid and were delaying other projects that are in the pipeline in order to go for expensive emergency power purchases, a senior CEB union leader said.

The CEB Technological Engineers’ and Superintendents’ Union President A.G.U. Nishantha told The Island yesterday that the Mannar plant provided only between 20 and 30MW to the national grid.

“We have some 1,000 engineers but they had failed in their focus in getting the much needed supply,” he added.

When contacted, CEB Chief Vijitha Herath told The Island that they did their utmost as predicted by March due to technical issues, however, stressed that by mid-April remaining 70 per cent would be connected to the national grid.

He also said that they would also cut down on Supplementary Power purchases from 128MW requested last year to about 75MW.

Engineer Herath also expressed confidence that despite the dry period, the country’s reservoir water level was manageable.

Nishantha said that hydro catchment levels had dropped to nearly 20 per cent and the CEB had to cover the shortfall with expensive thermal power.

He also charged that projects were being delayed and cheap power plants were being sidelined, a matter that needed to be discussed at length.

Nishantha stressed that eventually to meet the continuing power demand, the Board would be forced go for additional power purchases at a higher cost.

Dismissing rumours, power sector regulator Public Utilities Commission (PUCSL) Chief Janaka Rathnayake assured that there wouldn’t be any blackouts or power shedding in the country despite March and April generally being termed as dry months.

PUCSL Chairman told The Island that there was no drought as such and at present water levels in the reservoirs was manageable. The reservoir capacity stood at 850MWh which was much more than in the previous year.

A senior electrical engineer yesterday said that the problems would arise if the rains failed between May and June over catchment areas.

He also said that the supplementary requirement was about 128MW to be taken from those plants that had been providing power as usual and there is no additional request as such despite the growing energy need between five and six per cent.

CEB earlier this month spelled out the need of the supplementary requirement especially after the Covid pandemic wreaked economic havoc worldwide.