OMG. Sri Lankan electricity depends on the rains and our ability to burn stuff. It seems that both have failed, resulting in two hour power cuts, reportedly daily, in ‘certain areas’. Which is super bad. Today there was a power cut and I just had to not work and leave the office, er, house. This is going to do serious damage to anyone trying to run a business in Sri Lanka. Or live, really.
What happened? Well, Sri Lanka depends on hydro for about 50% of its energy needs (see this infographic). The rest of our supply depends on running giant generators to burn fuel oil. The latter madness was supposed to be mitigated by the construction of a coal burning power plant in Norochcholai, but that keeps catching on fire (not in the way it’s supposed to). Now that is completely offline, as are a few thermal plants, and there’s a drought, so no power.
Sri Lanka will have two hour power cuts daily, the first in over a decade, following the outage of a 300 MegaWatt coal plant that generated about 20 percent of the daily energy needs of the country.
A schedule for power cuts are expected to be announced later Monday by state-run Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), until two large plants are brought on line…
Though Sri Lanka has a large hydro generation reserve, water levels are down to about 26 percent of total amid the worst drought in a decade and the plants are needed for a night peak.
The outage of coal plant was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as two other large thermal plants are also out. (LBO)
The Daily Mirror is reporting that these power cuts will also include 45 minutes at night, across certain areas. Which of course seems to include where I live, Dehiwela. According to the more sympathetic government Daily News, they’re imposing the cuts to conduct repairs and have dispatched three teams of specialists to figure out what’s wrong. I would venture that it’s years of bad policy and corruption, but that isn’t immediately helpful.
The Daily News is a propaganda outfit, but they had some stats in there. One is that we’re depending on thermal for 85% of energy right now, meaning that the country is essentially running on a generator. Seriously, think about that to understand the depth of bad policy that led us here. When the power goes out you might run a restaurant off a diesel generator, but that’s now we run our country.
“The CEB depends on thermal power for generation of 85 percent of the country’s electricity requirement due to the prevailing weather condition. The Kerawalapitiya and Lakwijaya power plants generate 270 Mws and 300MWs respectively. Due to the lack of rain fall hydro power generation capacity in the country at present is estimated at 15 percent, “CEB sources said…
‘So the CEB has decided to impose two hour power cuts in certain areas until two operations at the power plants return to normality or hydro power generation is increased to 25-30 percent” said Deputy General Manager for System Control, T.D.Handagama. (Limited power cuts to carry out repair work)
Another interesting point is that the mention when the power cuts will end. Essentially, when they fix the broken plants or when it rains. So pray for rain.
A developing country? This last happened 15 years ago so our current direction seems to be backwards.
The last rolling blackouts were in May 2002. That is 10 years ago.
“rains and our ability to burn stuff”
well most of the worlds electricity depends on this, coal and LNG.
No one other than major oil producers use diesel or fuel/furnace oil for electrical generation due to the cost.
We do use but that the reason for the huge loss at CEB.
Does anyone knows what wrong with the coal power plant?
There is rumor that the machinery is old (but this is pure rumor since no one/or organization has been named as the source and Sri lankan journos suck at technical things).
Two other claims is that,
1.Chinese are sabotaging it to extend the maintenance agreement. Chinese haven’t properly trained CEB personal- this by the CEB union (which mostly comprises of electrical engineers)
2.The CEB engineers are unfamiliar with the new coal power plant. And the CEB engineers (who are electrical engineers) do not recruit mechanical engineers who have a better knowledge about mechanical things.-by CEB mechanical engineers
From a other source (person with knowledge and has visited the plant) told me that it more with the second issue. The coal power plant is the most technically complex thing here and our people are unfamiliar with it.
Is there any one who have a better knowledge about this?
Powercuts are a feature of daily life in most parts of India – including in cities like Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. Since many Sri Lankans love to glorify everything about India let us rejoice in the fact that we are following India’s path to prosperity by following their example of power cuts.
We have continuous power but at a huge cost…
Governments from 1993-2005 f*cked our cheap electricity. But they had help from environmental groups, ngos, church, local politicians…
We need to replace our diesel or fuel/furnace oil fired plants with coal or LNG fired ones.
That’s the only way achieve a low cost reliable electricity supply.
At least now they should move to daylight saving time.