Sri Lanka faces threat of power crisis in 2017

Sri Lanka's electricity regulator, on Tuesday, informed the Power and Energy Ministry that urgent steps must be made to buy new power plants, postpone maintenance work at the available power plants and increase contribution from rooftop solar generation to avoid a power crisis in the first quarter of 2017.

The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) said that a successive failure of monsoon had caused very low hydro reservoir storage, less than 500 GWh, and the Commission's recommendations were made to mitigate the impact of power shortages during the period from January to April 2017.

The PUCSL said that the full availability of Lakvijaya coal plant, the country's only coal power plant, was a key factor in January 2017.

The PUCSL suggested to looking into the possibility of shifting any maintenance at the available power plants to avoid shutting down during the critical period January to April.

The Commission further suggested the state owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to improve the fuel quality in order to get the maximum output from the plant. It was further suggested that CPC should supply fuel as per the requirement.

The Ceylon Electricity Board was also suggested to take immediate action to purchase shortage in generation from available plants and the CEB and the Sustainable Energy Authority should "expedite connection" to start commercial operations under small scale generation on Standardized Power Purchase Agreements. Endit