Post by solar2016 on Feb 5, 2017 19:45:01 GMT 5.5
www.thesundayleader.lk, 05th February 2017, By Ifham Nizam
The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) recorded an operating profit of 20.1 billion in 2015 after years of colossal losses to the Indian Ocean Island but yet falls short of ensuring transparency when it comes to purchasing power from private plants, an expert told The Sunday Leader.
CEB purchases power from private thermal plants annually to gap the capacity generated by CEB generation plants and the actual demand.
Since CEB has failed to build their own generation plants in line with the growing demand the only available option has been the purchase of power from the readily available private thermal power plants.
Energy experts point out that these purchases are made without providing a proper mechanism and procedure.
... learns CEB purchases power from Asia Power at a unit cost of 27 rupees, ACE Kalanitissa at 22 rupees, ACE Abilipitiya at 21 rupees and West Coast at 26 rupees.
Apart from that, CEB pays a monthly fixed charge of 163 million rupees to Asia Power, 45 million rupees to ACE Kalanitissa, and 720 million rupees to West Coast. These payments should be made with or without purchasing power from these plants.
Also the plants are paid a start up charge and a shut down charge whenever CEB decides to get power from the plants and when CEB wants them to shut down.
However, an energy expert pointed out that CEB purchases energy from private parties without a proper procedure. Since there are no transparent dispatch plans for day, week, month and year, purchases are made on an arbitrary manner which make unnecessary payments to private companies. Also it is learnt that power purchase transactions are not properly documented. Hence nobody can find who is making the decision on purchases.
The power generation cost for the year 2017 is 190 billion rupees which includes the cost of thermal plants operated by CEB, the Hydro plant operated by CEB, Private Thermal plants and renewable energy.
Also with Sri Lanka’s critical energy situation, emergency power purchases are also being made whenever it’s necessary to assure the continuous electricity supply to the nation.
But the poor tax payers’ money is being used by the state owned monopoly CEB to purchase power in arbitrary and ad-hoc basis which will lead to corruption and losses.
Accordingly approximately 80 billion rupees were annually paid to private power plants to purchase power and even the Auditor General is unable to trace or audit these purchases since there are no proper guidelines or standards made or followed by CEB in making these purchases. Therefore so far no any single audit has been done by the Auditor General.
The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka, the electricity sector regulator is also holding a blind eye on this matter and approves the tariff annually allowing CEB to pass this avoidable cost to electricity consumers. PUCSL recently directed the CEB and Lanka Electricity Company Private Limited (LECO) to connect domestic rooftop solar plants to the national grid within two weeks from the date of application.
“The direction to provide the connection for rooftop solar plants to the national grid in an efficient manner within a time frame that will encourage people to move for solar power,” Damitha Kumarasinghe, Director General of Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka said.
Sri Lanka aims to add 200 MW of solar electricity to the national grid by 2020 and 1000 MW by the year 2025.
Accordingly the PUCSL advised the distribution licensees (CEB & LECO) to expedite grid connection process of domestic rooftop solar plants within a time frame of two weeks.
“Among the non-conventional renewable energy (NCRE) sources, Rooftop solar PV considered as one of the fastest technologies to install and integrate into the grid. Government’s ‘Soorya Bala Sangramaya’ (energy battle) programme is one strategy to support future energy requirement and so far Sri Lanka has added about 42 megawatts of capacity to the national grid through domestic rooftop solar plants by the end of 2016,” Kumarasinghe added.
Sri Lanka has 7,904 domestic rooftop solar plants that are installed and connected to the national grid, data up to Novemeber 2016 reveals.
This includes 256 rooftop solar plants in Southern province, 4,806 plants in Western province, 184 plants in Central province, 105 plants in Sabaragamuwa province, 249 plants in North Western province, 98 plants in North Central, 1,707 plants in Northen province, 32 plants in Uva province and 73 solar plants in Eastern province.
The total domestic rooftop solar plants before the Soorya Bala Sangramaya (the energy battle for solar) stood at 6,485 and increased to 7,905 by end November 2016. 1,420 domestic rooftop solar plants were added through Soorya Bala Sangramaya by end November 2016.
Generation of electricity through renewable energy sources has become a major concern for the government as well as private sector investors.
The government policy is to increase the existing 50 per cent of the electricity generation based on the renewable energy sources to 60 per cent by the year 2020 and to increase it further up to 70 per cent by the year 2030 and to generate the total energy requirement through renewable and other indigenous energy resources by 2050.
- These purchases are made without providing a proper mechanism and procedure
- There are no proper guidelines or standards made or followed by CEB in making these purchases
The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) recorded an operating profit of 20.1 billion in 2015 after years of colossal losses to the Indian Ocean Island but yet falls short of ensuring transparency when it comes to purchasing power from private plants, an expert told The Sunday Leader.
CEB purchases power from private thermal plants annually to gap the capacity generated by CEB generation plants and the actual demand.
Since CEB has failed to build their own generation plants in line with the growing demand the only available option has been the purchase of power from the readily available private thermal power plants.
Energy experts point out that these purchases are made without providing a proper mechanism and procedure.
... learns CEB purchases power from Asia Power at a unit cost of 27 rupees, ACE Kalanitissa at 22 rupees, ACE Abilipitiya at 21 rupees and West Coast at 26 rupees.
Apart from that, CEB pays a monthly fixed charge of 163 million rupees to Asia Power, 45 million rupees to ACE Kalanitissa, and 720 million rupees to West Coast. These payments should be made with or without purchasing power from these plants.
Also the plants are paid a start up charge and a shut down charge whenever CEB decides to get power from the plants and when CEB wants them to shut down.
However, an energy expert pointed out that CEB purchases energy from private parties without a proper procedure. Since there are no transparent dispatch plans for day, week, month and year, purchases are made on an arbitrary manner which make unnecessary payments to private companies. Also it is learnt that power purchase transactions are not properly documented. Hence nobody can find who is making the decision on purchases.
The power generation cost for the year 2017 is 190 billion rupees which includes the cost of thermal plants operated by CEB, the Hydro plant operated by CEB, Private Thermal plants and renewable energy.
Also with Sri Lanka’s critical energy situation, emergency power purchases are also being made whenever it’s necessary to assure the continuous electricity supply to the nation.
But the poor tax payers’ money is being used by the state owned monopoly CEB to purchase power in arbitrary and ad-hoc basis which will lead to corruption and losses.
Accordingly approximately 80 billion rupees were annually paid to private power plants to purchase power and even the Auditor General is unable to trace or audit these purchases since there are no proper guidelines or standards made or followed by CEB in making these purchases. Therefore so far no any single audit has been done by the Auditor General.
The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka, the electricity sector regulator is also holding a blind eye on this matter and approves the tariff annually allowing CEB to pass this avoidable cost to electricity consumers. PUCSL recently directed the CEB and Lanka Electricity Company Private Limited (LECO) to connect domestic rooftop solar plants to the national grid within two weeks from the date of application.
“The direction to provide the connection for rooftop solar plants to the national grid in an efficient manner within a time frame that will encourage people to move for solar power,” Damitha Kumarasinghe, Director General of Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka said.
Sri Lanka aims to add 200 MW of solar electricity to the national grid by 2020 and 1000 MW by the year 2025.
Accordingly the PUCSL advised the distribution licensees (CEB & LECO) to expedite grid connection process of domestic rooftop solar plants within a time frame of two weeks.
“Among the non-conventional renewable energy (NCRE) sources, Rooftop solar PV considered as one of the fastest technologies to install and integrate into the grid. Government’s ‘Soorya Bala Sangramaya’ (energy battle) programme is one strategy to support future energy requirement and so far Sri Lanka has added about 42 megawatts of capacity to the national grid through domestic rooftop solar plants by the end of 2016,” Kumarasinghe added.
Sri Lanka has 7,904 domestic rooftop solar plants that are installed and connected to the national grid, data up to Novemeber 2016 reveals.
This includes 256 rooftop solar plants in Southern province, 4,806 plants in Western province, 184 plants in Central province, 105 plants in Sabaragamuwa province, 249 plants in North Western province, 98 plants in North Central, 1,707 plants in Northen province, 32 plants in Uva province and 73 solar plants in Eastern province.
The total domestic rooftop solar plants before the Soorya Bala Sangramaya (the energy battle for solar) stood at 6,485 and increased to 7,905 by end November 2016. 1,420 domestic rooftop solar plants were added through Soorya Bala Sangramaya by end November 2016.
Generation of electricity through renewable energy sources has become a major concern for the government as well as private sector investors.
The government policy is to increase the existing 50 per cent of the electricity generation based on the renewable energy sources to 60 per cent by the year 2020 and to increase it further up to 70 per cent by the year 2030 and to generate the total energy requirement through renewable and other indigenous energy resources by 2050.