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by Lal de Mel

The misery of the two and a half hour power cut has made me appraise the readers of how we can avoid power cuts by harnessing the installed generation capacity and encouraging energy conservation.

According to Prof. Munasinghe in a newspaper article:

Commercial and Industrial establishments have large power installations that they use mainly during power cut hours, as it is cheaper for them to buy power from CEB.

The power that can be generated from this source is 300 to 400 megawatts.

If some inducement is made, these establishments can be made to generate their own electricity within a week or ten days.

CEB has a deficit of 100 to 200 megawatts of power and this will continue until the end of February.

Shortly industrial and commercial units will have to pay more, for CEB to recover from the cash deficit of Rs. 16 billion. Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation has estimated the cost of a unit of electricity supplied by CEB to be Rs. 10 per unit if they use only CEB power, but the cost increases to Rs. 12 per unit if they generate part of the power.

This is a result of the maximum demand meter, which discourages self-generation of power.

The break-even cost of running entirely on the standby power plant of 375 Kva is Rs. 15 per unit.

The new Minister of Consumer Affairs has promised to introduce transparent pricing for fuel, based on the monthly average international oil prices.

This is a necessity to run CEB and Petroleum Corporation as viable units.

The US $ exchange rate has moved from Rs. 67.78 at the end of 1998 to Rs. 93.40, which is an increase of 37.8 percent.

The power prices, which have not been adjusted accordingly, need to be revised. Increasing the price of power to Industrial & commercial establishments by Rs. 3 per unit and the offer of a rebate of Rs. 2 per unit of energy saved, will encourage the use of their standby power plants.

This is likely to result in a reduction of the power consumption of this segment by 100 to 200 megawatts within one week. CEB can publish the energy saving and the corresponding reduction in power cuts, until the power cut is withdrawn. This is a short-term solution.

The new Minister of Power is a practical businessman with a proven record of accomplishments, who has vowed to eliminate power cuts within 180 days. I have no doubt that he and his new team will deliver the goods.

I fully endorse the multi-pronged approach adapted by the new team, other than their plans to purchase 100 megawatts of power to meet short-term needs, without fully utilising the installed capacity in the Commercial & Industrial establishments. One reason is the transmission loss, which increased from 18.8% in 1998 to 20.7% in 1999 and further, increased in the year 2000.

This means if CEB succeeds in buying power at Rs.10 per unit, they need to charge Rs. 12.60 to recover the transmission loss. It is better to pay a subsidy of Rs. 2 per unit for self-generation, than waste Rs. 2.60 on transmission losses, aided, and abetted by the supply of power without meters to certain individuals and organisations.

The transmission losses need to be given special consideration in power planning.

When taking in to consideration the poor financial health of CEB, and the high cost of generating power (which exceeds US $ one million per megawatt), the better strategy is to expedite the removal of the monopoly of power generation by CEB and tender for the supply of power directly to selected sites such as the Industrial zones and the bigger towns.

We need to make use of the infrastructure already in place such as the Trinco oil tanks and the Shell LPG terminal, to reduce lead times and costs. The people of Northern & Eastern provinces will soon get all the power they need, without any security concerns.

There have been many letters to the Editors on the need to encourage the use of compact fluorescent lamps and fluorescent tubes. Urgent action needs to be taken to remove GST & NSL from energy saving devices and non-oil based power generation units required for mini hydro power plants, wind power plants, and solar panels.

The discriminatory power purchase pricing structure needs to be abolished and replaced by an environmentally friendly pricing structure, to encourage the generation of power from such sources. Let us remember the words of wisdom of King Parakramabahu who said "Let not a drop of rain water reach the sea without serving the needs of the nation".

I hope this will have some impact on minimising the power cuts and the adoption of sound strategies to provide power at the lowest possible prices to the nation.

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