Sri Lanka’s cabinet has approved
a proposal to procure 100MW of electricity from private power producers for a
period of 6 months with the option of extending it by further 6 months. The
Power Ministry said cabinet approval has been obtained to purchase electricity
in the short term at competitive prices through international bidding.
Island’s power regulator earlier
warned of serious consequences to be expected if the timely implementation of
long term generation plan is not ensured. Public Utilities Commission said due
to planned plants not being built as per the timeline, unforeseen power
procurement and change of power mix have resulted the increase in the average
unit cost of electricity.
In 2016, actual power purchases
from oil based plants have increased by 6 times than planned for 2016. Power
Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya, releasing a statement, however, said that it
is not a problem of state policy and planning.
“Hydropower generation is
challenged due to the lack of sufficient hydropower during Southwest and
Northeast monsoon rainfall in 2017,” “In this backdrop, the CEB is taking
measures to ensure the continuous power supply in the country.” Siyambalapitiya
said these emergency power purchases will not result in an extra expenditure to
the end consumer. He added that this additional electricity purchase will be
less than the cost of some of the gas turbines used by the CEB during the night
between 6.30am and 10.30pm, which will be the highest daily electricityrequirement of the system.
No comments:
Post a Comment