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Power cuts: Complain to the PUCSL
View(s):The Public Utility Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) wants electricity consumers countrywide to tell it when supplies are disrupted so that it may confront the Ministry of Power and Energy.
For this purpose, the PUCSL will place advertisements in the media, Corporate Communications Director Jayanat Herat told the Sunday Times yesterday.
Days earlier, Power and Energy Minister Ravi Karunanayake declared there would be no power cuts under any circumstances. However, his Ministry Secretary Suren Batagoda told the Sunday Times the Ceylon Electricity Board was running short of 300MW of power every day. This was with consumption levels remaining at 2,500MW.
The moves came as the Ministry urged the people to reduce power consumption, requested local councils to cut down street lighting by 50 percent and asked private industries to use their power generation plants in a fresh bid to overcome an ongoing power crisis.
In recent days, different areas had been hit by unannounced power-cuts, sometimes for more than three hours.
On Thursday, Power and Energy Minister Ravi Karunanayake presided over a meeting where the issue of power cuts was discussed, but no final decision was taken.
Dr. Batagoda said they hope to take emergency measures for the next 20 days and would encourage the private sector to import generators while expecting an increase in hydropower generation to meet the demand.
He said the Ministry would call a meeting of industrialists in the coming days to urge them to generate their own power. The Ministry will also urge the people to switch off at least two lights at nights and reduce the use of air conditioners. If these and other measures were successful, there would be a saving of 300MW daily.
CEB engineers have recommended to the General Manager of the Board that imposing rotational load shedding was required in view of the shortfall of hydropower generation.
At present, the hydropower generation capacity has dropped to five percent of the total supplies as against a supply of 40 to 50 percent of the power requirements on a daily basis.
The CEB Engineers Union has claimed that the failure to implement several proposed projects from 2015 onwards has led to the current crisis.
Union leader Saumaya Kumarawadu said the PUCSL and the ministry had failed to permit the implementation of the projects, but a PUCSL spokesman said it was the engineers who were delaying projects by refusing to attend Technical Evaluation Committee meetings.
Among the projects delayed or held back from 2015 are four Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) projects aimed at producing 1,630MW, the 500 MW Sampur coal power project and also power stations fuelled by heavy furnace oil.