Water levels down but no power cuts, assures CEB

Sandasen Marasinghe

The public need not to be alarmed of power cuts as experienced in earlier years although water levels of major reservoirs used to generate hydro electricity have dropped since thermal power plants have been integrated with the national grid to provide the public an intermittent power supply, said a Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) senior officer.

He said the Kerawalapitiya and Norochcholai thermal power stations are functioning and the CEB can guarantee an uninterrupted power supply.

He said the total storage of the main six reservoirs were 557 GWH by yesterday morning and it had reduced due to the drought.

The amount was a considerable storage as they expected rain in mid April. He said the Samanalawewa area and Kukule Ganga areas experienced a rain fall of 33.5 mm and 32 mm rainfall but the main reservoir areas did not experience any rain fall.

Referring to the statistics, the CEB official said the water storage in Castlereigh and Maussakele reservoirs have dropped to 20 GWH and 116 GWH. But the Kotmale, Victoria, Randenigala and Samanalawewa reservoirs had dropped their storage to 13 GWH, 254 GWH, 106 GWH and 47 GWH.