What President Rajapaksa should have asked of Prime Minister Modi
What attracted most media attention when Prime Minister Modi met the Sri Lankan President a few weeks back was the request to implement the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. Little has been reported about his other requests or of any requests made of him by the Sri Lankan President.
Perhaps the most important economic issue that was raised by Prime Minister Modi was that the long-delayed joint venture to develop a coal-fired power plant in Sampur be expedited.
Interconnection of grids
If the President had been fully briefed, he would have responded by asking for the Indian Central Government’s help to expedite the interconnection of the Sri Lankan and South Indian grids across the Palk Strait. He would have explained that it will be difficult to realise the benefits of the 500 MW Sampur Plant otherwise.
Sri Lanka currently has a peak power demand of around 2,150 MW and a minimum demand of at most 900 MW at night. When the three stages of the Puttalam coal plant are completed, the country will have 900 MW of baseload power. Coal-powered plants cannot be started up and shut down easily, which is why they are designed for baseload generation. Even without Sampur, the country faces a problem about how to incorporate 900 MW from Puttalam into the system when minimum demand at night is in the same range.
Even if we assume robust growth in electricity demand and that it will take five years to commission the India-Sri Lanka joint venture, it will be very difficult to accommodate a 500 MW baseload plant within Sri Lanka’s small system. Parallel to expediting Sampur, it will be necessary to work on a solution to the problem of creating adequate night-time demand.
“The Government of Sri Lanka should understand that a focused effort to connect the grids of the two countries is likely to be received favourably. Nothing will signal a reset relationship better than a quickly implemented mega project like the India-Sri Lanka High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Grid Interconnection”
There are some who believe that electrifying the railways or the proposed new public transport systems could be a solution. But they miss the point that transportation demand will not be heavy in the middle of the night. The one contribution that may come from the transportation side is the charging of electric vehicles, which will most likely occur on evenings and could be pushed into the off peak period with time-of-day tariffs. But that is unlikely to be adequate to raise night-time demand to the required levels.
Pumped storage, whereby water that has produced electricity once is pumped back into the reservoirs at night time using excess power to generate electricity again, is a possible solution. The weakness of this solution is that most Sri Lankan dams serve functions in addition to power generation. Downstream needs of water for irrigation, industrial uses and even for keeping salinity out of our rivers have to be factored in. While pumped storage may be feasible to a limited extent, it is unlikely that it can be a solution by itself.
Simplest and most effective solution
The simplest and most effective solution is to connect the Sri Lankan and South Indian grids. The massive demand on the other side of the Palk Strait can easily absorb excess power generated by the much smaller system in Sri Lanka and we may be able to draw power from India when needed. It is a win-win. A feasibility study has been completed by an Indian government-owned company. Implementation is what remains.
Electricity was a key agenda item during Prime Minister Modi’s first foreign visit, to Bhutan. He laid the foundation stone for a 600 MW hydro power during the visit. The new government places high priority on ensuring adequate power supplies for its growing economy, as evidenced in the first policy statement, read out by the President on 9 June 2014:
“The aim of the Government will be to substantially augment electricity generation capacity through judicious mix of conventional and non-conventional sources. . . . By the time the nation completes 75 years of its Independence, every family will have a pucca house with water connection, toilet facilities, 24×7 electricity supply and access.”
The Government of Sri Lanka should understand that a focused effort to connect the grids of the two countries is likely to be received favourably. Nothing will signal a reset relationship better than a quickly implemented mega project like the India-Sri Lanka High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Grid Interconnection.
(The writer is Founding Chair and CEO, LirneAsia.)
