Power problems

The Sri Lankan Government is considering temporary measures to prepare for a possible drought in 2019 that could see dreaded power cuts return. The proposals vary from emergency power purchases to creating artificial rain in hydro areas to prevent the wrath of a public, which could be particularly intense in an election year.

The main reason for these hurried steps is because the Government has failed to implement even one power project over the past four years despite repeated warnings and recommendations made by experts. The upshot of this is that there is a very real danger of public funds being wasted on stopgap measures that will not provide long-term solutions to Sri Lanka’s power problems.

Most people know that Sri Lanka has high power prices and the country has also largely tapped out its hydro options. Therefore the country has to move to a more sustainable and affordable power mix. This is where problems have cropped up repeatedly, with the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka and the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) incessantly fighting over what would be the best option for Sri Lanka. The months-long stalemate was finally resolved to some extent last year but there has been no thawing of relations. Even though long-term generation plans have been drafted, none of the power projects detailed in them have been implemented.

To make matters worse, after emergency power was purchased in 2017 the Government initiated plans to take over power plants operated by independent power producers and ready them to provide the shortfall in case of a drought. However, these plans and several others have languished for over a year and the Power and Energy Ministry is now readying to purchase emergency power once again, even though it may be cheaper to put the private sector power plants back on track and purchase power from them.

Emergency power is notorious for costing taxpayers more and ad hoc measures of this nature inevitably also open the door to corruption. It is for this same reason that politicians are often accused of delaying crucial projects so that panicked by rising public anger and discontent the funds will be provided for any stopgap measure. Experts have already pointed out that creating artificial rain is both expensive and has a high rate of failure and as such if the Government is adamant it must pick this option, it would be better to trial it in one area before committing to a large project.

Sri Lanka’s susceptibility to climate change is nothing new. The country has been experiencing erratic weather patterns for years and the Government has been warned time and again that it has to prepare early to face the consequences. There has also been an exhausting amount of research reports and expert views given to climate change impact and the importance of early adaptation but these fall of the deaf years of politicians. 

The economic cost of having high energy prices, wasting public money on stopgap measures and ignoring renewable energy solutions when they are being implemented in a cost-effective manner elsewhere in the world will leave Sri Lanka with more growth challenges to deal with this year.