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Ceylon Electricity Board has requested approval from the Power Ministry to carry out load shedding to cope with the current deficit in the power supply, owing to prevailing dry weather conditions in the country, as unscheduled power cuts were experienced across the island yesterday due to technical failures in Norochcholai.
The second generator of Norochcholai tripped due to a technical failure yesterday, leading to power failures across the country. The teams working on repairing the technical failure are hopeful that the generator will be in running condition by tomorrow. However, until such time, the CEB will carry out unannounced emergency load shedding, depending on the “requirement of the system,” Power, Energy, and Business Development Ministry Development Director and Spokesperson Sulakshana Jayawardana told Daily FT.
However, CEB claims that the power cuts may be extended due to prevailing dry weather conditions in the country. According to CEB officials, existing power plants are unable to meet the current demand. A letter requesting approval for scheduled load shedding, including, schedules has been sent to the Secretary of the Power Ministry for approval.
“Unless there is some miracle that happens, we will not be able to go on without power cuts,” one high-ranking official of CEB, who declined to be named, told Daily FT.
“Unless there is unexpected rain that comes from a depression in Bay of Bengal, which has happened before, it is going to be tough to manage. But it did not rain during the weekend as the Meteorology Department predicted, so we are not sure,” the official elaborated.
CEB officials confirmed that there was load shedding yesterday, due to the breakdown in Norochcholai which is likely to continue today.
According to CEB sources, load shedding planned for last week was not carried out, following a request by the Examinations Department to have uninterrupted power supply to facilitate a National level Information Technology Examination.
“We had to take water from the Rantabe reservoir, which is reserved for agriculture, to ensure undisrupted power supply last week,” the official noted. However, water has to be preserved for drinking purposes as well, limiting generation capacity of the reservoirs.
According to CEB sources, a three-hour daytime load shedding and one hour night-time load shedding has already been scheduled on rotation basis. However, approval has not been requested from the Public Utility Commission to carry out power cuts, Daily FT learnt.
CEB engineers are insistent that the load shedding is needed to ensure that they are able to supply power until the end of April. They have already written to the Board on 6 March, highlighting the situation, and the need for them to carry out load shedding, as recommendations to procure emergency power and commission Independent Power Producers who have already been given Cabinet approval have not been carried out.
“The system control unit has been given instructions to manage resources as needed,” a CEB official told Daily FT, explaining that load shedding is likely to happen from today.
The CEB at present cannot meet the supply deficit of 300MW shortage - with the Norochcholai breakdown, the deficit has increased to 500MW.
However, Jayawardana noted that the demand has increased due to dry weather conditions, with daytime peak demand increasing to 47.7GW/h last Thursday, putting further strain on the system.
However, the Ministry has not made a final decision on load shedding, Jayawardana insisted.
“We are looking at a lot of options, including self-generation, and we haven’t decided on the matter yet,” he insisted.
