CEB decides to call tenders for 100 MW emergency power

Engineers say "disastrous"
Minister’s assurances evaporate

By Ifham Nizam

Fearing a serious supply shortage in the first half of 2012, the Ceylon Electricity Board has decided to call tenders for supplying 100 MW of emergency power from March 2012.

The Island reliably learns that CEB General Manager Nihal Wickramasooriya has informed the Ministry of Power and Energy, by letter dated December 9, 2011, that the emergency power purchases would cost around Rs. 13,000 million based on auto diesel and Rs. 8,000 million if heavy fuel oil (HFO) was used.

A majority of the CEB engineers on Monday expressed shock at the necessity for emergency power at such enormous cost, given that CEB has more than sufficient thermal power capacity to generate daily requirement of electricity, even under the adverse hydro conditions.

Power and Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka had stated on numerous occasions that the CEB possessed adequate thermal generation to supply electricity under any contingency situation brought about by low rainfall.

In his address at the elaborate opening ceremony of the Norochcholai coal powered plant, he assured the nation that power cuts were a thing of history and would be removed permanently from the vocabulary.

However, within a few short months of this promise, the CEB was forced to shed loads in mid-2011, following the highest rainfall recorded in history in the previous year. These unannounced power cuts were a direct result of the CEB’s wrong policy of maximizing hydro generation in the first four months of 2011, without making use of cheap thermal power made available by several private power plants.

The reservoir levels have since returned to normal, and with the addition of 300 MW Lak Wijaya coal plant at Norochchoali and 300 MW Yugadhanavi Combined Cycle plant at Kerawalapitiya since 2010, senior CEB engineers said that there was no need to obtain emergency power at huge costs to tax payers.

The CEB last used emergency power in early 2002. According to a document circulated by Minister Ranawaka, early this year, the CEB had been making profits steadily until 1996. It was in 1996 that CEB resorted to purchasing emergency power for the first time (from Aggreko).

Many analysts agreed that this emergency power purchases spelt the financial ruin of the CEB. Aggreko never left the country since it first set foot in Sri Lanka in 1996, and had continued to supply emergency power to CEB during subsequent power cuts and also to Jaffna during the hostilities in the North.

According to CEB engineers, Aggreko has fully recovered its investments many times over, and as such the additional benefits given by former Chairman Vidya Amarapala in 2011 could not be justified.

Engineers said that emergency power was an extremely lucrative business not only to the suppliers such as Aggreko, but also to those standing in line to receive kickbacks from those multi-million dollar deals.

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