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Tests show Lakvijaya plant spews out dust 16 times over the limit
View(s):Tests in March and April at the Lakvijaya coal power plant in Norochcholai show particulate matter–or dust–sixteen times over the maximum permissible level in the stack emissions of unit one.
The quantity of harmful sulphur dioxide is also over the limit in the stacks emissions of both unit one and two, with the latter performing significantly worse than the former.
Unit two is functioning without a vital environmental protection device called the flue-gas desulphurizer (FGD) which was destroyed in July last year when a welding fault set its insulation material on fire. This instrument removes sulphur dioxide from the flue gas.
The latest results–of which the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is aware–come amidst reports that Power and Energy Minister Ravi Karunanayake is angling to push three more coal power plants through the Cabinet. Two are proposed for Foul Point in Trincomalee and another again at Norochcholai, even as the world turns away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
The CEB has failed to run even the one power station at Norochcholai without serious environmental issues, documentary evidence shows. This is the second time the poor quality of stack emissions at Lakvijaya has been flagged.
The Industrial Technical Institute (ITI) sampled the emissions in September last year. At the time, five fields of the plant one’s electrostatic precipitator (ESP) were also out of order, in addition to the FGD of unit two being broken. There are 16 fields in total.
The ESP is also called an electrostatic air cleaner. It is a filtration device that removes fine particles–in this case, fly ash–from a flowing gas. The ITI found that the sulphur dioxide concentrations from unit one and unit two “exceeded the maximum permissible level”. Particulate matter, however, was within range.
These issues prevented the Wayamba Provincial Council Environmental Authority (WPCEA) from issuing an environmental protection licence (EPL) to the Lakvijaya power plant for many months. Several orders to comply with requirements were ignored.
In January 2019, more fields of the ESP became faulty, forcing the FGD of unit one to also be bypassed. At present, both units are running with the FGDs.
However, in October 2018, the WPCEA issued the licence to Lakvijaya despite the FGD not functioning. The EPL itself decrees that: “Continuous efficiency measures for the flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) unit shall be carried out using inlet and outlet ports. It is essential that the minimum efficiency of removal of SO2 [sulphur dioxide] by the FGD shall be maintained at 95%.”
And it also mandates that the Lakvijaya management “shall take immediate and appropriate action” to rectify the FGD of unit two as agreed upon at a monitoring committee meeting held the same month as the EPL was issued.
Scientists recently said their instruments had detected that “very fine airborne ash particulates” from Lakvijaya had reached the Nawalapitiya hills and Colombo in March and April 2018. “We measured particulate matter so fine that it can lodge inside one’s lungs,” seven researchers from the Foundation for Environment, Climate and Technology presented the findings at the American Geophysical Union in December last year.
They warned that the particulates will diminish rain-bearing clouds, be toxic to fauna, coat vegetation and crops and lop years off the life expectancy of those exposed. The instrument in Nawalapitiya was placed on a remote hilltop.