Emergency power requirement 35MW, not 55MW: Dy. Minister

By Charumini de Silva

The Government says that the actual emergency power requirement of the country was 35 megawatts and not 55 megawatts, as the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) announced recently.

 “There is an emergency power requirement of 35MW from Ukuwela upwards, due to the system weaknesses. Therefore, we are now in the process of setting up power generators to have an uninterrupted power supply from Ukuwela,” Power and Renewable Energy Deputy Minister Ajith P. Perera told the Daily FT.

He said that the decision of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) to deny the request of the CEB to obtain 55MW of emergency power was in the right direction as the CEB had failed to convey the actual capacity of the Embilipitiya power plant, which stands at 100MW. “The reports are contradictory,” he said.

The Deputy Minister justified the CEB’s move by stating it was a ‘technical mistake’ as the application that it had prepared was not based on an extraordinary drought period and it had stated 80MW as the power generating capacity of Embilipitiya power plant.

The PUCSL issuing a statement told the CEB that its request to buy 55 MW of emergency power was not in line with the approval given by the Cabinet of Ministers and the least cost power generation expansion plan.

Acknowledging that there were bottlenecks in the long-term power generation system, Perera asserted that the Ministry was taking the best possible steps to mitigate any shortcomings in the power supply in the future.