Electrified transportation: The step towards future

Thursday, 26 February 2015 00:10 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The 19th Electrical Engineering Society (EESoc) panel discussion was held recently at Water’s Edge. The Electrical Engineering Society (EESoc) of the University of Moratuwa is the prominent social arm of the Department of Electrical Engineering. EESoc was established on 21 October 1994 under the patronage of Prof. Rohan Lucas and Prof. Samarajeewa Karunaratne and acts as an open arena for the graduates and undergraduates as well as for the academic staff. The theme of this year’s event was ‘Electrified transportation – The step towards future’. Electrification of transportation still seems a novel concept in the Sri Lankan context. Despite the many discussions and numerous proposals, the implementation is at a stand-still due to the lack of assimilation of the responsible parties, says the EESoc. Minister of Power and Energy Patali Champika Ranawaka was the chief guest of this event while Minister of Internal Transport Ranjith Madduma Bandara was the guest of honour. Minister Ranawaka discussed the current situation of the country and what needs to be done to improve the economy and realise goals such as electrified transport. “Sri Lanka is now moving from the middle income level to the higher income level which necessitates certain basic prerequisites. We need to concentrate on a knowledge based economy where the era demands a mixture of technology, economy and innovation. “In the recent past, the development was concentrated on service sectors such as the transport and leisure industry, which are not sustainable. In the long run, what the country requires at this juncture is a sustainable economic model reinforced by an interrelated social model and environmental model.” “With the recent interim budget proposals, we have initiated this activity by taking steps to reduce the economic burden of the poorest by slashing prices of fuel and essential goods. The people of the lowest economic strata have gained much economic benefits out of this reduction of prices. We’re now in the process of further reducing and modifying electricity tariff on objective pricing rather than subjective pricing which was the norm of the day during the recent past. It’s necessary for me to emphasise that it’s important to correct the mismanaged economy by getting away from bad practices and taking many corrective actions,” he added. Inclusive approach among engineers prerequisite to innovative driven economy Minister Ranawaka further mentioned, “This new era demands us to produce engineers who are capable of grasping fundamentals not only on applied sciences but also on many other spheres of learning such as management, art, economics, aesthetics, architecture and even music. Inculcating this inclusive approach among our engineers is a prerequisite for us to enter into an innovative driven economy. Contrary to this, what we have done in the past is to produce engineers graduating strictly on compartmentalised system of learning and this can’t be the case in the contemporary global environment.” Institute of Engineers Sri Lanka President and former General Manager of CEB Eng. Shavindranath Fernando delivering the keynote address recapped his past experience in the transport sector and suggested a few things that could be done better in future. “In 1983, I was doing some work in the energy sector and I had to analyse the CEB load profile and the demand projections. To my surprise, there was an electricity demand component for railway electrification and 32 years later, we are still talking about railway electrification. Railway electrification was first proposed by none other than one of our great visionary engineers D.J. Wimalasurendra somewhere in the early 1920s,” he said. He also spoke about the electric trolley busses and tram cars in the 1960s. “I believe the decision to scrap them was made due to mismanagement, unionism and politics at the time and may not necessarily be for economic reasons.” He recalled that in 1992 the Sri Lanka Energy Managers Association organised a roundtable on transportation with the experts at that time. In 2008, the institute of engineers have sponsored a study of railway electrification and even got the assistance from the Institution of Engineers India. The study had very clear conclusions and a cabinet paper was drafted by the Ministry of Power and Energy. Our minister at that time none other than our chief guest signed it and sent it to the Ministry of Transport which I believe is still there to be signed by the minister. This cabinet paper never saw the light of day, he said. Shavindranath further pointed out that hybrid cars have been sought after by many car users and for the last 10 years, electric cars have been imported only by enthusiasts and were not really to be introduced for urban usage. “With the tax reductions for importation of electric vehicles, it is imperative that we all in the transport and energy sectors get together and address the myriad of issues that necessarily will have to be addressed urgently.” Moreover, he said that the discovery of natural gas in the Mannar basin is something that needs to be taken into cognisance as we have more than 600 MW combined cycle plants that can easily be powered by natural gas. He concluded his speech by asserting, “We do not lack the expertise on the matters I have raised today. We also have with us ministers who are committed to do what is right and prudent.” Public perception on electrified transportation The Forum also saw the release of the results and conclusions of the survey, ‘Public Perception on Electrified Transportation’. The survey has shown that the majority of people in Sri Lanka are quite willing to accept the new electrified transportation systems if the increment of the fair is less than 25%. People believe that it’s important to move to electrified transport because it’s a great solution for the energy crisis in Sri Lanka and has positive impacts on the environment. Further, they suppose that electrified transport will be a great escape from the fossil fuel crisis worldwide. The lack of political support is deemed to be the reason why electrified transport is still not available in Sri Lanka by more than 37% of the respondents. Overall, the study has indicated that people have a general idea about electrified transportation but lack detailed knowledge on the subject. Power sector, being an essential ingredient of the national economy and the human activities needs unstinted attention from the experts. The EESoc panel discussion was initiated with the purpose of serving the power sector with an unbiased and a fruitful discussion regarding a timely issue. An eminent panel of professionals from the industry shared their knowledge while improving the awareness about an urgent issue in the power sector among the undergraduates, graduates, professionals and the general public The panel discussion was moderated by University of Moratuwa Department of Electrical Engineering Senior Professor H.Y. Ranjit Perera. The first panellist to present was Dr. T. Lalithasiri Gunaruwan, leading Economist and a Senior Lecturer, University of Colombo and Former General Manager of Sri Lanka Railways. He discussed the present economic situation of the country and the challenges ahead of us. “We are a fast growing economy with a 7-8% sustained growth, low inflation economy, less that 4%, low interest rates, low unemployment of less than 5% now, high social dev indices that is low infant mortality, maternal mortality etc and the budget deficit is less that 5% and we have a reducing debt to GDP ratio. It’s a marvellous economy, a very well managed economy and why are you complaining?” he asked rhetorically. Import dependent economy Then he said, we also have our negatives. We are a heavily import dependent economy. Greater than 30% GDP or over 40% of the national energy need and almost all our capital goods are imported, so we are an import dependent economy. If the cord is cut, we are dead! We have a poor industrial base, persistent trade deficits was up to nearly 10% of GDP in 2013. What does that mean? We import more than the export and our deficit is very significant. Then there is increasing foreign debt, the foreign debt to export earnings have risen from 6% in 2005 to 16% by 2014. He highlighted that these reasons will get Sri Lanka trapped between the high income status and low income status. To overcome this challenge, he elaborated on ways we need to enhance productivity, develop economic self reliance and minimise negative externalities. Trends and challenges of future mobility requirements The second presentation was by Prof. Amal S. Kumarage Senior Professor, Dept Transport and Logistics Management, UoM Former Chairman, National Transport Commission Chairman of TransCentre, University of Moratuwa on the topic ‘Trends and challenges of future mobility requirements’. “The demand for mobility is increasing all the time, it has increased with population over the years but it has been noticed that even when the population stops growing the demand for mobility increases. In fact, it’s found now that it’s more related to income and almost directly proportional to income,” he said. He referred to statistical data to show how much mobility is required by citizens, how it’s achieved, along with the average road speeds and the cost for each kilometre. Having discussed these matters, he mentioned that to maintain current road speeds by 2030 with the increasing demand for mobility, the road capacities would need to increase by 100% while increasing fuel prices and so on. Alternatively there are options such as encouraging the use of public transport, optimising land and road use and achieving cost effectiveness. Electrical utility and future strategies The third presentation on the topic ‘Electrical Vehicles (EV) in the perspective of electrical utility and future strategies’ by Eng. M. Lakshitha Weerasinghe, Chief Engineer (Business and Operational Strategy) Ceylon Electricity Board. He addressed issues like the positive impacts of electric vehicles and would they contribute to the balance of load and reducing the fuel emissions in Sri Lanka. He started off with the history of EVs while fixating on General Motors EV1 ‘Saturn’ which was the first mass produced and purpose-designed electrical vehicle of the modern era. Electrified transportation: The step towards future “41% of the national income is spent on importing petroleum, 66% of this is for the transport sector and 98.5% transport sector petroleum usage of the country is to power road transport. That is where the problem is and now the solution. If we can gradually transform our vehicle fleet into electricity what would happen is, the petroleum demand in the transport sector will transfer to the load. From road to load,” he explained. He discussed the possible options to power this load and pointed out that the most practical solution would be the indigenous and clean energy source of wind. Time, best tariff structure, distribution aspects of electrification The next panellist was Dr. Narendra De Silva, Head of Engineering at Lanka Electricity Company Ltd. He discussed the questions of what is the recommended time for electric vehicle charging, what would be the best tariff structure for charging and what are the distribution aspects of the electrification of vehicles. “There will be a smart meter where the vehicle will demand the number of hours of charging and we will dynamically allocate the capacity to the vehicles. Considering the efficiency issue, when you look at the overall efficiency of the entire lifecycle efficiency of this business, probably at the highest efficiency we’ll be converting the primary energy to electricity at about 35-38%, then at the electric vehicle we’ll be converting that efficiency at about 70-80%, this should be contrasted to the vehicle efficiency of somewhere lying about 15%. “If you work out these numbers you will see that transmission losses should be less than 10% to make this efficiency pump economy... so every station or the other we may need to provide a connection to maintain the reliability of the network,” he explained. Challenges yet to be overcome The fifth panellist Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya, Premier Energy Consultant in Sri Lanka and the Managing Director at Resource Management Associates Ltd., Former President of Sri Lanka Energy Managers Association, elaborated on the challenges we still have to overcome to electrify railways, the next steps and dimension of investment required. He said that according to the rankings done so far, the electrification of railways should start with the Panadura to Veyangoda route. He stated reduction of running cost, speed and efficiency as advantages of electrified train services. He then discussed the engineering challenges; that would be the construction of power supply, track improvements, signalling and level crossings. He also detailed the estimated cost which would be approximately $ 30 million and other implementation concerns of electrified railways. The last speaker of the panel was Dr. Beshan Kulapala, Research Scientist at CodeGen International (Project Manager of Vega Electric Car Project). He presented a brief overview of the technology behind electrified transportation. He described the main components of the EV, its control architecture, different modes of electric transportation and EV charges. The informative panel discussion was followed by a question and answer session. There were various questions and comments on the efficiency of small electric vehicles and the removing of tram cars and trolley busses which are powered by electricity. Further there was a question as to whether the upcountry line or metropolitan area should be electrified. The panel replied this question saying that upcountry line is not a very busy railway line and investing on the infrastructure for a railway that is not used as frequently as some of the urban railways would not be feasible at this point. They also pointed out that some tourists come to Sri Lanka to travel to the upcountry in the old-fashioned way and it would be nice to maintain it. Moreover, there were suggestions to implement a few electric busses known as Capabusses that run in China, on our roads too. Overall, there were many valuable ideas for the audience and panel to take away from this discussion. Drawing the event to a close, the EESoc Award for the Best Final Year Project was awarded to the team comprised of M.H.C. Lakshan, L.H.H. Madurangi, M.K.B.S. Munasinghe and M.A.V.J. Muthugala for the project, ‘Design and development of interactive robot head’ supervised by Dr. A.G.B.P. Jayasekara.