Lakvijaya power plant to shut 1 of 3 units for three-months maintenance

One of Lakvijaya coal power plant’s 3 units will be shut down for 3 months for a scheduled maintenance, engineers confirmed.

"The maintenance was delayed for several months because the 300 MW it generated was essential to the national grid," said Susantha Perera, Additional General Manager (Transmission). He also said that, the 100 days it will be shut down, was the minimum period required for this scheduled maintenance.

“There are different types of maintenance and this was scheduled from the beginning of the year,” Dr Perera said. “We were not able to release the unit because of problems with supplying electricity. Even now, we are not 100% comfortable with shutting it down, but we have no option, because the machine can break down.”

"The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) does not anticipate a shortfall in electricity, as the maintenance was delayed until water levels in the hydropower reservoirs reached safer levels," Dr Perera said, adding that, the utility was now in a position “to take some risk”.

But questions remain whether the prolonged closure will see the CEB run short of hydropower and in need of emergency power.

The Government signed up 100 MW of emergency power at the beginning of the year, from Lanka Transformers (Pvt) Ltd, Windforce (Pvt) Ltd and Aggreko, which is the world’s largest emergency power provider. "The contracts of 6 months each are due to expire soon, but are renewable," Dr Susantha said. Nevertheless, the water levels should suffice to tide over the shutdown.