• Power cuts unavoidable if no rain by March 15
• Reservoirs nearing critical level

By Santhush Fernando
Although, last week Power and Energy Ministry won a major hurdle in passing the Sri Lanka Electricity Bill, which was withdrawn four times earlier, the Sri Lankan consumer would have to see power cuts if there were no rains by mid March.

“We would have to implement power cuts if the drought continues and if there are no rains by March 15.” Power and Energy Minister John Seneviratne told The Nation.

Rainfall showed a steady decline and hydro storage in end February 2009 was 3.5 GWh, down from 7 GWh for the same period in 2008. Storage was just 1.5 GWh away from reaching the 2 GWh, considered the ‘critical level’ in hydropower generation in the country but could reach that point in another week’s time.

2008/09 also recorded the lowest inflow (rainfall) to hydro reservoirs during the period from October to February for the last five years. Inflow was just over 1,000 GWh down from 1,600 GWh in 2007/08 and less than half of the inflow recorded in 2006/07, which was 2,250 GWh.

Daily power cuts ranging from 20 minutes to one hour could be expected if the drought continued. Presently daily electricity requirement of the country stood at 1.9 GW out of which one third was contributed by hydro power plants and the rest by thermal power plants.

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) said that the hydro storage of hill country reservoirs had been depleting at an alarming rate and that it appealed to all consumers to reduce and to use efficiently their electricity consumption.

As hydropower generating capacity had dropped from 1,265 to 350 MW, CEB requested public to confine their electricity consumption activities to low consumption period avoiding critical hours between 6 and 10 pm.

“Efficiency and productivity of the CEB has to be increased. Local and foreign investors should be encouraged to develop the local power sector by investing in it. We have to switch to low-cost power plants, instead of high-cost diesel plants. We must increase usage of local and renewable energy sources. You can’t salvage CEB as long as you don’t deviate from diesel.” Minister Seneviratne said.

Although Sri Lanka faces an imminent power shortage, over 15 % of the output goes wasted due to system loss while another 20% is wasted due to bad usage practices.