Scarce rainfall, stop-start coal power signal heavy reliance on thermal power

Light rainfall and technical glitches at the country’s only coal power plant means authorities will have to rely increasingly on thermal power to ensure uninterrupted electricity generation, placing an ever-growing financial burden on the Government.

As of Friday (16), the total capacity of hydro-power reservoirs was at 42% and falling. Meanwhile, Unit 1 of the Lakvijaya coal power plant in Norochcholai has been out of action for two months, depriving the national grid of some 300 Megawatts (MW) of power. This has forced the Government to depend more and more on thermal power. The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL), the country’s electricity regulator, warned this week that power-cuts would still be inevitable next month, if the system loses 560 MW of thermal power. Due to the continued growth of electricity demand, this threshold would reduce to 500MW in February and 350MW in March, it further added.

Given the gravity of the situ- ation, Power and Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya will present a Cabinet Paper next week, detailing measures the Ministry is taking to supply uninterrupted power next year, Ministry Secretary Dr. B.M.S. Batagoda told the Sunday Times.

Dr. Batagoda admitted the scenario was something they did not see coming, but stressed the Government was still confident of providing uninterrupted electricity, though generation costs would inevitably rise with increased thermal power.

Officials, however, were confident that Unit 1 of the Lakvijaya plant, which had been out of action following a power outage in October, would be ready to resume power generation by January 1. The PUCSL too had stressed it was essential for Unit 1 to resume electricity generation from January 1, given the expected strain on the system.

Despite the rise in generation costs, there has still not been any discussion on a possible electricity tariff hike in the coming months, the Ministry Secretary also insisted.

Issuing a briefing report earlier this week, on the power supply situation from December 2016 to March 2017, the PUCSL pointed out that, based on past trends, there will likely be no significant rainfall until April 2017. Hence, daily major hydro dispatch levels should be kept below 6 Gigawatt Hours (GWh) a day on average, to ensure the availability of hydro reservoirs until end of April, it noted.

The utility also underlined that authorities should ensure continuous availability of fuel for the oil-fired power plants.