No light at end of Lanka's power plan tunnel

No major plant set up since 2015 to meet increasing demand; experts blame former govt for failing to implement Sampur and other projects Questions over CEB's hydropower management; power crisis mired in worsening financial crisis in CPC, CEB; Govt. going

Energy experts say power cuts and blackouts have become a regular occurrence due to a collective failure on the part of the authorities to bolster the country’s national grid in keeping with the rising demand.

With no major power plants being established since 2015, island-wide power cuts are inevitable, they warn, pointing out that the Government is being forced to increasingly rely on ever costly emergency power as a stopgap measure.

The power crisis that has affected the country over the past few years again came to the fore on Monday when the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) abruptly decided to impose a two-hour island-wide power cut on a daily basis. This came after the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) stopped the fuel supply to the Kerawalapitiya power plant after the CEB exceeded its credit limit.

In a January 31 dated letter to the Power and Energy Ministry Secretary, the CPC highlighted that it would face a serious financial issue if it continued the uninterrupted fuel supply to the CEB on a credit basis after February 1.

The CEB currently owes the CPC Rs 84 billion for fuel supplies while Independent Power Producers (IPPs) collectively owe about Rs 32 billion.

The move to cut fuel to the Kerawalapitiya plant could not have come at a worse time for the CEB as it happened when Unit 1of the Norochcholai power plant was also out of commission owing to scheduled maintenance. With one 300MW unit of the Norochcholai power plant taken off the national grid, the CEB could not afford for the Kerawalapitiya power plant to go offline as well.

Power and Energy Minister Mahinda Amaraweera told the Sunday Times that neither he nor power sector regulator Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) was informed of the power cuts by the CEB before they went into effect.

“I only learned of the power cuts from social media. I also found that they had informed the media about the power cuts prior to me,” he added. He also pointed out that the CEB was bound by law to seek the PUCSL’s approval for any scheduled power cuts.

Minister Amaraweera has appointed a five- member committee headed by Ministry Secretary H. Samarakoon to probe who was behind the decision to impose power cuts in such an arbitrary manner. The committee has been asked to submit its report by February 11.

The PUCSL meanwhile, has also demanded an explanation from the CEB over the matter, instructing it to submit a report on or before February 12.

Meanwhile, the prospect of a prolonged island-wide power cut has been averted, at least for the moment, after the Minister, whose purview includes both the CEB and CPC, intervened to instruct the CPC to continue fuel supplies to the CEB, subject to Cabinet approval.

Experts, though, point out that the power sector has been in crisis for years and that instead of trying to mitigate it, those in authority have, in fact, exacerbated it, either due to their own incompetence or to advance their own vested interests.

While electricity demand continues to grow on a daily basis, not a single major power plant has been added to the national grid since 2015.

Most of the power plants that the CEB had envisaged to be operating by 2020 are either way behind schedule or have been scrapped. Accordingly, there is enormous pressure on existing plants to keep an uninterrupted supply going; a daunting challenge, as observed again this week.

Energy analyst Vidura Ralapanawa said Sri Lanka's electricity generation capacity has not grown in keeping with the increasing demand.

“This crisis was foretold as far back as 2016,” he noted, citing a letter sent by the PUCSL to the Power and Energy Ministry Secretary in April 2016, the Secretary's letter to the CEB in 2017, and the CEB's June 29, 2017 Board Minutes. “The board minutes listed 995MW plants to be fast-tracked; but of this list, only 20MW of solar has been built by January 2020.”

There was no urgency even after the March- April blackouts of 2019, where power was interrupted for three to five hours every day for nearly a month, Mr Ralapanawa said. Only a few ground mounted 1MW solar stems and 70MW of rooftop solar systems have been added since then. The CEB is yet to tender most of the plants in the board minutes from 2017, including oil fired plants. Only emergency power is procured religiously, he remarked.

He also pointed out that the country received above-average rainfall during last year’s Maha season. As such, there was ample water for hydropower generation if managed properly. Currently, there is no problem in meeting peak demand.

“The shortage of energy is during daytime. The majority of power cuts in 2019 and all of 2020 were during daytime. The peak demand is about 2500MW while the day peak would be about 2300MW during a weekday,” he explained, adding that the country has about 3300MW of ‘dispatchable’ plants – quite sufficient to support the peak.

To supply the peak, the CEB currently needs about 1200MW of hydropower. According to Mr Ralapanawa, though, the Board has used a similar amount of hydropower even during the daytime, especially on a weekday. This has resulted in the rapid depletion of the hydro reserves. This leads to reservoir levels going down by about March/April, much earlier than the Yala rainfalls brought on by the South West monsoon, creating an energy deficit.

Moreover, the 90 day shutdown of Unit 1 of the Norochcholai plant in 2019 October resulted in the plant coming back online only on February 4, some 20 days later than scheduled. These 20 extra days depleted hydro reserves by about 120GWh (10% of the reserves on January 1), it was further revealed.

Mr Ralapanawa said it was unclear why the CEB scheduled shutdowns during October-January when water had to be saved from mid- November. “Why not schedule during the Yala rainfall, using climate predictions to plan?” he asked.

E n e r g y Consultant T h i l a k Siyambalapitiya, meanwhile, held former President Maithripala Sirisena and former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe responsible for precipitating the current power crisis by arbitrarily scrapping power plants that the CEB had scheduled to build.

He pointed out that it was the previous government that suddenly scrapped the 500MW Sampur coal power plant in 2015 citing environmental concerns. It also scrapped a gas import terminal. If its construction had begun as scheduled in 2015, the Sampur coal power plant would have been generating electricity this year, he added. He compared this situation with the Rampal coal power plant in Bangladesh, which also began construction in 2015 but which is now ready to start its first generator. Meanwhile, not one, but two gas terminals are already delivering gas to that country. “Bangladesh has put years of blackouts behind it. Sri Lanka on the other hand, is looking forward to increasing blackouts year after year,” he quipped.

As the crisis escalated, the CEB restarted its costly oil fired plants, which in turn results in the total generation cost going up. The Government, however, does not allow the CEB to transfer this cost back to the consumer, resulting in the Board continuing to accumulate ever more colossal losses. Dr Siyambalapitiya claimed the CEB was losing Rs 80 billion a year by running oil power plants.

He emphasised that what Sri Lanka needed was to build the correct mix of generation. In that mix, there will be coal, gas, wind and solar power plants.

A senior CEB official acknowledged that the Board’s dire financial situation had worsened the crisis. He, however, said Monday’s incident occurred because several other power plants had been undergoing scheduled maintenance when the fuel supply to Kerawalapitiya was stopped.

He argued that the move forced the Board’s hand to impose a sudden power cut as there was not enough capacity to meet the daytime peak. This would not have been an issue had the 300MW from Unit 1 of Norochcholai been available that day, he said. “We had to take that decision due to the desperate nature of the situation and to prevent a complete system failure. We reject accusations of sabotage.”

Being a state entity, the official said the CEB was subjected to certain constraints that made things difficult for it. For example, he pointed out that the CEB had long been planning for the Sampur power plant to meet the increased power demand during the next few years, only for it to be suddenly cancelled. “Now we have to start from zero. It’s not an ideal situation.”

The official acknowledged that procuring emergency power was the only shortterm option. “This is of course, expensive and not a solution, and it’s not what the CEB wants,” he claimed. “But when your planned power plants don’t materialise for a variety of reasons, you aren’t left with much of a choice.”

He, however, claimed that the CEB was working on long-term solutions such as setting up an LNG storage facility. “The reason we are working on that is because we can convert a few of the power plants to LNG quickly,” he added.

Minister Amaraweera too admitted that the Government would have to go for emergency power purchases for the time being. “We are, however, expecting about 35MW of power from the Uma Oya project to be connected to the national grid by mid this year while about 18MW are also expected from the Broadlands hydropower power plant. These aren’t much but we are expediting the plants that should be set up,” he added.