Minister Ranawaka at International Renewable Energy Conference

Power and Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka, who is currently attending the Delhi International Renewable Energy Conference (DIREC), participated as a Panellist in the Ministerial Session of the Conference on 27 October.

It was chaired by Minister of New and Renewable Energy of India Farooq Abdullah. DIREC was held in New Delhi from October 26-29. The event was inaugurated by President of India Pratibha Patel.

On the sidelines of the conference, on Tuesday (26), Minister Ranawaka held discussions with Arup Roy Choudhury, Chairman,  National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Ltd. of India and paid a visit to the Dadri Power Station complex near Delhi managed by the NTPC.

The theme of the conference is ‘Upscaling and Mainstreaming Renewables for Energy Security, Climate Change and Economic Development’.

Speaking at the discussion, Minister Ranawaka stressed the need for improving renewable energy as a form of mainstream energy. In this connection, he said that considerable amounts of Sri Lanka’s energy were from renewable sources.

Sri Lanka’s emission levels are far below the world average. He added that even though there was good potential for expanding wind power in Sri Lanka, due to technical difficulties Sri Lanka was facing problems in relation to dispatching such renewable energy.  Therefore, the issues of storage and dispatch of especially solar and wind energy have to be addressed. At the moment Sri Lanka is focusing as a priority on biomass based energy, such as dendro power. 

This is the fourth in a series of conferences, the earlier summits of which were held in Washington, Beijing and Bonn. Minister Ranawaka is also slated to make a presentation on ‘Modern Biomass Energy’.