Financial Times

Investment Opportunities
Renewable Energies and Energy Conservation (I)
By Nilooka Dissanayake
The world is facing an energy crisis. We depend too much on non renewable sources such as coal and oil for our energy needs. And Sri Lanka, where we lack coal or oil reserves, is heading for a severe crisis. She will need to face it far sooner than the global energy crisis materializes because scientists predict that within a few years, Sri Lanka will end up paying all the revenues earned from export of tea, rubber and coconut to finance our energy needs. So Sri Lanka’s energy crisis will be one of affordability rather than of availability. That is, if something is not done to avert this situation.

The availability crisis will come later. As to how much later, scientists have varying ideas. This trend spells disaster. Together with such disasters, or drastic needs for change, come opportunities. Let us look at the variety of opportunities that can be found in this looming energy crisis, both for Sri Lanka and at a global scale. First let us look at Sri Lanka’s situation and at immediate opportunities.

One potential area for investment in Sri Lanka (and everywhere in the world) is in renewable energies. Renewable energy can be derived from a variety of sources. Hydro thermal energy, solar energy, wind energy and geo-thermal energy are some of them. Bio mass energy is another. Now let us take each area and see where there are opportunities and how they arise.

It is generally accepted that Sri Lanka has exhausted most of her hydro power capacity at a large scale. Mini hydro power projects are all that is left and many investors currently supply power to the national grid quite profitably. Banks too have found this to be a lucrative area for investment.

Solar power is also quite popular and a number of businesses are in the business from local operators to multinationals like Shell. Currently most projects in Sri Lanka are for domestic use and in a small scale in the hospitality trade. There might be opportunities to explore in solar power for commercial use in a medium or large scale, considering the type of modern buildings around the world that utilize solar power to cut down on their use of other energy sources but more on that later.

Sri Lankans have always thanked their stars for not being in volcanic areas and that blessing has to be offset by the lack of thermal energy sources.
Wind power is an area that has not really been explored to a significant degree. Global giants are into exploring opportunities in this area. But obviously, wind farms are not for the small or medium investor. Not yet.

That brings us to biomass energy. Biomass simply means burning up wood, other plant materials or garbage to produce energy. When you put a chopped log into the fire, you are using bio mass energy. A very high percentage of local domestic energy consumption comes from firewood – that is biomass. However, the firewood here comes from woods and scrubs. The idea of bio mass is to utilize, easy to grow, fast growing plants to harvest periodically as fuel. Basically farms that grow fuel as the main crop or a side crop!

The huge potential for biomass energy has been demonstrated beyond doubt in Sri Lanka. The champion of biomass energy in Sri Lanka is none other than the renowned scientist, Dr. Ray Wijewardene. Speaking to Dr. Wijewardene, it is difficult not to get infected by his passionate belief and enthusiasm in the potential for biomass, an area he has been working and experimenting on for the past 15 years.

According to Wijewardene, it is possible to produce most of Sri Lanka’s energy requirements using biomass energy (to top hydro power of course). This can lead to savings in vast amounts of foreign exchange and also avert a national debt crisis, especially with rising energy demands as well as rising oil prices.

(To be continued next week).
Share with us your ideas on this topic. Send your comments and questions to ft@sundaytimes.wnl.lk.

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