More blackouts in future (by 2018) unless Lankan authorities act fast
Can Sri Lanka go nuclear to solve its future electricity woes – and have no doubts there will be more blackouts and outages in the years to come?
This was the question posed by the Business Times at the end of a 2-hour seminar this week on the ‘Electricity Crisis’ jointly organized by the two CCCs – the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce and the Consumer Consultative Committee of the PUCSL (Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka, the watchdog that oversees the electricity industry). The man in the hot seat, Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) chairman Anura Wijayapala, who fielded the question, revealed that a nuclear power station was decades in the making and not feasible until the country had home-grown expertise to run it.
“Sri Lanka is not ready (for nuclear power) right now. It could be a long-term solution and only feasible when we have our own people to operate it. If we were to completely import operators this would siphon away any benefits,” explained Mr. Wijayapala. According to the head of the CEB, two years ago the Ministry of Power and Energy set up a steering committee to look into nuclear power as a remedy for the country’s burgeoning demand for electricity. They had also held discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about earmarking a suitable location for a nuclear plant. But all this was just preliminary groundwork for as Mr. Wijayapala insisted “only when our knowledge is ripe” can we go ahead.
“We have to train our young people. We have to prepare our universities and educate our children (on nuclear energy). This will take time. I can safely say that for the next 15 years at least, Sri Lanka will not have nuclear power. But this is an option we must consider,” he added.
This is an option which will have to be looked at seriously if the warning of Damitha Kumarasinghe, director-general of PUCSL, is to be heeded.
One of the four keynote speakers at the seminar, Mr. Kumarasinghe said the country could face a major electricity crisis within the next two years due to internal as well as external issues. Addressing the large gathering, Mr. Kumarasinghe pointed out that since most of Sri Lanka’s oil imports came through the Strait of Hormuz, any upheaval in that region – Iran and the Gulf of Oman – could jeopardise the country’s source for cheap oil.
And at home, the next big source of power, the coal-fired Sampur plant is scheduled to come online only in 2021, leaving the country vulnerable to more blackouts. A fossil fuel-based supply system accounts for nearly half of the country’s source of electricity with hydropower (38 per cent) and non-conventional renewable energy (11 per cent) providing the balance. While Mr. Wijayapala painted a bright picture – answering the question ‘is there light at the end of the tunnel’ adding: “there is light throughout the tunnel”, fellow-speaker Tilak Siyambalapitiya, an energy consultant, refused to be lulled into a false sense of security and urged the decision-makers to take lessons from the three blackouts experienced recently.
“There is a crisis in reliability, a crisis in accountability and a crisis in supply capacity. We have to acknowledge these issues and learn from our mistakes,” insisted Dr. Siyambalapitiya. Dr. Siyambalapitiya revealed that the country hadn’t learned from past experiences – the 2009 blackout when no report or study was published as to the reasons behind the crisis – with authorities preferring to adopt an Ostrich outlook. “We had a blackout in 2009 when the entire country was plunged into darkness as well as one last year. But everybody lives happily ever after until the next blackout – and it occurred, not once but twice this year. “Is there light at the end of the tunnel? No. All is not well with no commitment to attend to shortcomings. None of the reports on blackouts (from the Ministry, PUCSL, CEB) has been published barring one.
And worst of all there is no information to the public on what happened, what is being one, and by when,” Dr. Siyambalapitiya pointed out. “There is no capacity crisis as yet but it is coming and most likely by 2018. The country does not have one major power plant under construction since Norochcholai was completed in 2014,” he warned. With nuclear out of the question for the moment, it seems the authorities might have to get their act together quickly if we are not to undergo more blackouts in the future. Although the CEB takes pride in informing that 99 per cent of households in Sri Lanka have electricity, Dr. Siyambalapitiya refused to be effusive saying “the fact that Sri Lanka gives 24/7 power is an outdated argument”. When compared to the rest of the world, the country is still lagging (behind).