The ‘correct’ mix should finally run a stable grid and deliver electricity at an affordable cost which in turn would result in affordable prices. A stable grid is an engineering requirement; to the layman, instability is displayed by frequent power outages, brownouts and blackouts. To the engineer, instability has many different aspects to be analysed, involving a lot of calculations, scenario analyses, more calculations and informed judgements.
For the layman, the grid is a group of generators, connected with wires, and he feels that any electrician can fix a generator and connect them with wires, and say “here is your grid”. The layman knows the electrician has no education, so that means the layman too thinks he can do it himself. Thus, our society is full of such self-appointed electric power system experts.
To the engineer, an electric power system is an engineered grid, which has to provide every kilowatt the customer asks for (with no prior booking), right at the same moment the customer asks for it. Name a commodity that you get at the same time you ask for it from the vendor? Petrol (5 minutes), vegetables (2 minutes), rice, dhal, a bus ride, a mobile reload? Hmm ! none, but electricity, you ask for it by switching on, and here, it is.
Stability
Stability depends on the mix of generating plants and their features. For example, a country’s electricity supply cannot be run with one coal power plant, because if it trips, no one will have electricity. There must a number of power plants, so that the loss of one generator will allow others to pick-up. What if the country has only solar power and nothing else? When the sun goes down every evening, or hides behind clouds for days at a stretch, how can you get electricity?
Therefore, an electric power system should consist of a group of generators that fulfil, to the best possible extent, the objectives of stability and affordability. There are other aspects, such as national energy security, for which the diversity of sources is essential.
It is essential that all types of power plants, should abide by the environmental regulations. Coal and gas power plants have predictable performance but have emissions.Hydro power plants are clean but need reservoirs and end up confining streams to pipes. Wind power plants have an unbearable noise, solar power plants cover a lot of land space, otherwise to be used for agriculture or forestry. Each technology to produce electricity and each site to build power plants have their merits and demerits.
Thus, what Sri Lanka should do is exactly what is stated above; build the correct mix of generation, to meet the objectives, and not be swayed by unquantified comments from unqualified persons, including politicians, who know nothing about how to engineer an electric power system.
In that mix, there will be coal power plants (for stability, economy and fuel diversity), gas power plants (for stability and mid-merit operations and to follow the variations of wind and solar plants, and as a dry season backup for hydropower, large and small, for well-known reasons, and to wind and solar when they run dead), and wind and solar power plants for their superior environmental credentials and every decreasing equipment costs.
This is precisely what our society is not doing; a President says, “I do not like coal power plants; when I went to India they showed me large solar power plants, so we too must do that, and only that”; a Prime Minister said “The gas terminal should be built by my chosen contractor”; at the end, nothing was built, not even wind and solar power plants. Disturb the long term plan, and then you have had it ! Not a single power plant was built since Norochcholai was completed in 2014; it takes five years to build a large power plant, takes only one day to destroy a power plant project, takes one day to buy a diesel generator.
What do other countries do? I present the generation mix of South and South-East Asian countries below, in terms of energy input to the grid for financial year 2018 or 2019 (based on data availability), without comment.
See for yourselves, how others are driving their economies with what, while Sri Lanka is lagging behind, one reason being the higher electricity prices and lack of confidence in the future electricity supplies.
Sources: Annual reports of electric utilities or regulatory agencies in the respective countries
One last word of advice to readers, politicians and journalists: if you think you can decide what should be the generation mix in the country, then do not encourage your children or grandchildren to study engineering or economics. You can make those calculations and decisions yourselves.
Sampur
When Sri Lanka signed an agreement to build a power plant in Sampur, Bangladesh too signed a similar agreement to build a similar one in Rampal, in Southern Bangladesh. Our two politicians boasted that they cancelled not one but two power plants in Sampur in 2015; Bangladesh went ahead and managed the international protests very well.
Sri Lankans thought Sri Lanka’s Sampur was cancelled for the love of the environment, but the two politicians began chasing behind their chosen contractors to build another power plant. Chasing they did for five long years; nothing happened other than frequent political fights.
Now we are in 2020, the year Sampur was to begin producing electricity. Bangladesh is now ready to start the first generator of Rampal, the sister power plant of still-born Sampur, killed jointly by our previous President and Prime Minister.
Bangladesh has put years of blackouts behind them, proudly inviting investors to come over and invest, including those from Sri Lanka.
Good old Sri Lanka is looking forward to increasing blackouts year after year. Bangladesh economy is growing at 7 per cent, Sri Lanka at 3 per cent.
Bangladesh is saving 1000 million USD per year by building Rampal, the sister power plant of Sampur; Sri Lanka is losing USD 350 million per year, by cancellingSampur.
Like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh too decided in 2015 to build a gas import terminal, ie liquefied natural gas (LNG), mainly to produce electricity. Not one but two terminals in Bangladesh are already delivering gas to the country.
The pragmatic leaders of Bangladesh listen only to professional reasoning and implement projects with a strong focus and a no-nonsense approach.
Our two politicians played ball games with Sri Lanka’s gas terminal project for five long years, meanwhile bleeding the country with more and more dollars for expensive oil to produce electricity. Need we say more?
Finally, we all blame the weather!
Get your kerosene lamps ready; buy candles. Blackouts are imminent, it’s a touch and go situation, irrespective of what politicians say.