Sri Lanka to promote electrified transport with more charging stations

Sri Lanka is to set up rapid charging stations to encourage more electric vehicles and will commence a preliminary study for the development of infrastructure for railway electrification under the country’s energy security plan.

It is intended to generate electricity for charging stations through the production of green electricity like solar power.

Electrified transport will become the popular mode of transport with the increase in electric vehicles as a result of the tax reduction on such vehicles, Minister of Power and Energy Patali Champika Ranawaka told a conference organised under the technical programme of Engineers Guild of Sri Lanka in Colombo this week.

The country requires at this juncture a sustainable economic model reinforced by an interrelated social model and environmental model, he said, adding that electrified transport could play a vital role in it.

The government was in the process of further reducing and modifying electricity tariff on objective pricing rather than subjective pricing which was the norm of the day during the recent past, he revealed.

Electric vehicle re-charging centres island-wide will be set up at fuel service stations, supermarkets and even homes with private sector assistance, he said adding that a new tariff rate will be introduced for recharging from 1.00 am to 4.00 am.

The Minister noted that apart from electric vehicles, he is considering introducing electric trains as well to Sri Lanka.

The government has reduced taxes on electric cars to 5 per cent while taxes on other vehicles including motor cycles are 100 per cent to 200 per cent. Hybrids are also taxed at a lower rate.

He emphasised that it’s important to correct the mismanaged economy by getting away from bad practices and taking many corrective actions, Inclusive approach among engineers is the prerequisite to an innova- tive driven economy. “This new era demands us to produce engineers who are capable of grasping fundamentals not only on applied sciences but also on many other spheres of learning such as management, art, economics, aesthetics, architecture and even music,” he said.

Dr. Narendra De Silva, Head of Engineering at Lanka Electricity Company Ltd (LECO) said that they will introduce a smart meter where the vehicle will demand the number of hours of charging and LECO will dynamically allocate the capacity to the vehicles.

However, he said that transmission losses of this set up should be less than 10 per cent to make this system economi- cally viable.

The presentation made by Ms. Tania Gunawardena of AUTOSAFE noted that in fact Colombo leads the pack as the fastest growing city in Asia and has shown a tremendous enthusiasm in the rates of adoption in electric vehicles (EV) as evidenced by the statistics recorded the Department of Motor Registration showing consumer willingness to support green transportation.

With a video presentation, she added that one electric vehicle in the market, LEAF is the first affordable, mass produced EV with the size, speed and range performance to meet a large percentage of people’s driving needs.