N’cholai to transmit 300MW to national grid tonight

Report points to dismal situation in CEB

 By Ifham Nizam

The first unit of the Norochcholai Power Plant would be connected to the national grid, tonight, Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Chairman Eng. Vijitha Herath said yesterday.

He ruled out the possibility of any sabotage as regards last week’s countrywide blackout.  

The Ministry of Power will submit a detailed report to the Cabinet today and Minister of Power Dullas Alahaperuma will brief the press thereafter.

Technical fault at the Kerewalapitiya Sub Station and the breakdown at the Norochcholai Power Plants were two separate incidents, a report says.

The CEB has attributed the recent countrywide power outage to a sub-station fault that led to the breakdown of the Norochcholai power plants.

The CEB Technological Engineers and Superintendents Union submitted a report on the power failure to the committee investigating the matter.

The maintenance at the substation is carried according to the technical know-how and experience of the superintendents and other officers, the report says.

While engineers are given both local and overseas training, superintendents and other officials lack such opportunities, the report has pointed out, questioning why five security systems between the Kerawalapitiya sub-station and the Norochcholai power plant had failed.

The union has also highlighted the need to find out whether the recommendations made by committees that probed previous countrywide blackouts had been implemented. It has highlighted the delays in setting up the generators that were purchased to power the equipment that cool down generators at the Norochcholai power plant.

The CEB union has said that although a state-of-the-art operations centre for the national grid was set up, the staff stationed at the centre lacked proper experience.

It adds that experienced officers were removed from the operations centre and reassigned to office work.