New policy initiative required for energy efficiency
Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI
A new policy initiative is required to accelerate the implementation
of energy efficiency measures, and a sustained campaign to assist and
enforce it.
Energy Consultant Tilak Siyambalapitiya said at a symposium on
"Facing Contemporary Development Challenges of Sri Lanka -Relevance of
Dr E.F Schumacher's Work" at the Buddhist Cultural Centre Colombo last
week. He said energy efficiency and demand management by end- users has
seen many initiatives, but very limited impacts by way of benefits to
customers and suppliers.
The appliance labeling program is at a slow pace, while hundreds of
energy audits remain to be implemented, therefore having a new policy is
vital.
He said, policies implemented are often unwritten policies. Therefore
great efforts have to be taken to get politicians, administrators, and
professionals to agree on policies, obtain their support and implement
it.
Dr Siyambalapitiya said Sri Lanka?s primary energy mix draws 61
percent from renewable sources.
The policy on renewable energy development is to encourage
replacement of fossil fuel use for thermal energy with biomass and to
get a 10 percent contribution of renewable energy in the grid
electricity supply, by year 2015.
However, the prices paid in Sri Lanka for renewable based electricity
supplied to the grid are the highest in the world, whereas resources,
investments, finance costs and contractual conditions are among the best
in the world.
But due to serious policy failure renewable energy is most likely to
benefit a selected few investors leaving the public with no benefits, he
said.
Sri Lanka Energy Forum ,Executive Director Asoka Abeygunawardena said
electricity demand in Sri Lanka has increased at a rate of 7 percent and
the government target is to manage the demand as usual demand would
increase by 10 percent by 2020.
Further, the country is planning to maintain a 40 percent share of
renewable energy resources such as, biomass, wind, solar and ocean
energy.
The government has also indicated its commitment to achieve carbon
neutral growth in the power sector by 2020 and to follow carbon
emissions reduction pathway after 2030.
However, if the government is to achieve this targets it is necessary
to remove key technical and economical bottlenecks , he said. The key
technical constraint is for the system to absorb power from most of the
renewable energy sources due to their intermittent nature.
Therefore a storage mechanism is needed to address this issue and the
government is seriously exploring the possibility of introducing pumped
water storage power plants to Sri Lanka for removing this technical
barrier. |