Power cuts or load shedding; some confusion

Public Utilities Commission (PUCSL) Chairman Janaka Ratnayake, while announcing the schedule for power cut for 9 March says that power cuts are due to lack of fuel and generators, an issue which he did not seem to have realised earlier. The need for additional power generators was lucidly explained by Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya in one of his letters to the press where he stated: ‘Thus, even if all the money in the world is available to buy fuel with no outages of any power plant, the capacity on the grid is simply not adequate the customer demand. The 200 Mw minimum shortage and the absence of 800 Mw of new power plant can be hidden by ‘Ministerial order’ or Regulatory Commission order’ but not for long. The end is very near’

As for the above findings, the onetime Minister for Power and Energy, Patali Champika Ranawaka who is also, I understand a qualified electrical engineer, had this to say in a press interview: “Before we look into the solution, we must see the root cause for the issue. As far as the electricity crisis is concerned it is not the capacity of the problem. We have around 3500 Mw firm energy. That means large hydro power. Plus thermal energy plants owned by the CEB and private power producers. The CEB has also renewable energy sources. Mainly mini-hydro and rooftop solar which is around 480 Mw. That’s a big amount. Then we also have wind power. Grid connected solar and bio-gas. So, in all we have about 4800 Mw. The peak is about 2700 Mw. So, we have sufficient capacity. The real problem is that the thermal energy plants are not running because of fuel shortage”

I remember—I am subject to correction—that when Ranawaka was Minister for Power and Energy, he did not renew the contracts of two private suppliers, probably because the CEB had the required generation capacity at the time.

G. A. D. Sirimal

BORALESGAMUWA