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Emergency power: Cabinet nod to advertise for purchases

30 Jan 2022

The Cabinet of Ministers has last week approved a request by the Ministry of Power to advertise for emergency power supply due to the declining power generation capacity, The Sunday Morning reliably learns. A senior Cabinet minister told The Sunday Morning that approval had been granted to the Power Ministry to advertise for emergency power purchases through a competitive bidding process and that the process was likely to start next month. The need for emergency power purchases, a practice which has long been linked to controversy, has arisen due to the rapid decline in hydropower, lack of generation from some thermal power generation plants due to repairs, and lack of fuel. A breakdown of one of the generation plants at the Norochcholai Power Plant has deprived the State utility provider, the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), of nearly 300 MW of generation capacity, with several diesel and fuel power plants also running out of fuel.  The unavailability of the Sapugaskanda Oil Refinery, which was closed for nearly a month, has also limited furnace oil supplies needed to power some of the thermal power plants.  According to the CEB, hydropower provided a total of 13.37 GWh of electricity last Friday (28), with thermal power supplying 30.09 GWh.  Attempts to reach Minister of Power Gamini Lokuge and Ministry officials for comments on the planned emergency power purchases failed.  Lokuge had earlier stated that there were persons with vested interest within the CEB who wanted to push the country towards buying emergency power, pointing out past allegations of corruption regarding such purchases.   


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