Power crisis but CEB halts new power sources
View(s):The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), just as Sri Lanka struggles through a drought and faces possible power cuts, is rejecting applications for new power sources that could increase the country’s total energy capacity by around 800 per cent.
Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA) officials said this week that the CEB has stopped accepting new wind and solar projects due to technical issues in the national grid and their unstable nature.
“The CEB and the Ministry of Power and Energy has asked us to stop sending new applications for wind and solar projects,” Prasad Galhena, Chairman SLSEA told the Business Times.
This is at a time when these new projects have the potential to generate a total of 24,000 Mega Watts (wind 20,000 and solar 4,000) as against the current, total installed capacity of 3,400 MW.
The CEB says that they face technical limitations in absorbing wind and solar energy as at many wind and solar energy producing sites, the grid capacity isn’t available. Also they are sceptical about the instability of these power sources because they aren’t reliable and don’t have a consistent nature.
The CEB confirmed that as of now ‘all’ proposals for wind and solar projects have been halted, but what it contends is that as these power sources aren’t stable, they cannot be absorbed into the grid just as yet because the grid will destabilise the functions. “This is why the Board doesn’t want new applications, but we are currently doing a grid stability study to facilitate these power sources,” Shavindranath Fernando, General Manager CEB told the Business Times. He also added that this study will be completed by next month end. The CEB spends some 46 per cent of its expenditure for purchasing power from Independent Power Producers (IPP). “The CEB will only spend 10 per cent of this if they purchase from Non Continual Renewable Energy Producers,” Mr. Galhena said.
Mr. Fernando said that the growing electricity demand could be met only by adding adequate generation capacities, employing the most appropriate technologies in the most economical manner. However, the present energy resources in Sri Lanka fail to meet these criteria and therefore, the need for several resources or an energy mix arises. Mr. Galhena said that the country’s power sector is heavily dependent on hydro power. “We have been developing hydro power since a long time ago. All these hydro schemes were major power generation projects and they are also known as ‘conventional’ power generation schemes since they have been around for quite a long time. Now however, the capacity of such large schemes is nearing their end. Therefore we have to resort to other means of generating power, among which the grid connection of small hydros, wind power generation schemes and solar projects are receiving much attention.”
He added that such technologies are termed non-conventional renewable energy technologies, because they were not used in the past in conventional grid power generation.