Power tariffs could go up by 400 %
While the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is incurring heavy losses due to the prevailing fuel crisis owing to shortage of dollars, it has an outstanding of approximately Rs. 22 billion to settle renewable energy operators.
This was pointed out by the Renewable Energy Association of Sri Lanka that includes small hydro, wind, solar, biomass power developers, and also Solar Industries Association of Sri Lanka during a joint media briefing at the BMICH in Colombo on Wednesday.
It was revealed that the CEB owes payments delayed for over eight months to all renewable energy operators who supply to the national grid. It was also warned that Sri Lanka will lose 1200 MW from the renewable energy sources if the CEB defaults its payments further.
The associations also put forward a detailed chart for the financial year 2022/2023 explaining where Sri Lanka will be heading if no focus is given to renewable energy sources, pointing to ways in which the CEB can cut spending.
For CEB to produce 17000 GWh of power annually, coal power costs 32 per cent, diesel costs 20 per cent, furnace oil costs 16 per cent, hydro costs 19 per cent and renewable energy costs 13 per cent.
At the current tariff rates introduced by the CEB, the cost of electricity for this year will be Rs. 939 billion, estimated income will be Rs. 289 billion and the loss incurred will be Rs. 650 billion. The average cost of supply is Rs. 55.26 per KWh whereas the average selling price of electricity to the consumer is Rs. 17.00 per KWh and the loss stands at Rs. 38.26 per KWh.
The loss to the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) at the current fuel selling rate to the CEB will be Rs. 230 billion whereas the total loss to the country for the financial year 2022/2023 will be Rs. 881 billion. For the CEB to service the loss consumer tariff has to be increased by 300 per cent and for the country to service the loss (CEB and CPC), the consumer tariff has to be increased by 400 per cent. Experts in the renewable energy sector advised that if renewable energy was allowed, CEB would have managed without such price increases.
The associations state that Sri Lanka can produce 70 per cent of renewable energy by 2030.
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