Kelanitissa repairs delayed to purchase emergency power – CEBTESU

By Rathindra Kuruwita

The CEB has not repaired the 154 MW Kelanitissa Combined Cycle Power Plant for 18 months and the unexplained delays in implementing power projects were part of a plan to make the CEB purchase emergency power, Ceylon Electricity Board Technological Engineers and Superintendents Union (CEBTESU) Chairman AGG Nishantha said yesterday.

CEB technicians had damaged the Turbine Rotor of the plant when they attempted to install it without checking its equilibrium in August 2019, he said.

“Since then, this has not been fixed and for 18 months taxpayers have been footing the salaries and other fixed costs although the plant doesn’t generate power.”

Nishantha added that Kelanitissa ran on a by product of oil refining process called naphtha and that CPC also used to make a profit by selling it to the plant. Without the demand from the plant the CPC now sold naphtha at half the price, he said.

“The plant generates 1,084 Gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity annually, the total annual demand of electricity is over 36,000 GWh. Because the plant was not operational for 18 months, the country has lost about 1500 GWhs. This is a loss of over Rs. 25 billion. The plant used to produce and sell electricity for around Rs. 20. A unit of emergency power costs around Rs. 30 per unit.”

A number of projects have not been implemented and the production of renewable energy is being discouraged, he said.

“All this is done to purchase emergency power annually,” he said.