Ceylon Electricity Board

Ceylon Electricity Board

ශ්‍රී ලංකා විදුලි බල මණ්ඩලය

Ceylon Electricity Board Logo
Government-owned corporation overview
Type Electricity generation,
Electricity transmission,
Electricity distribution,
Electricity retailing
Headquarters Colombo,Sri Lanka
06°55′49″N 79°50′50″E / 6.93028°N 79.84722°ECoordinates: 06°55′49″N 79°50′50″E / 6.93028°N 79.84722°E
Motto Enrich Life Through Power
Annual budget 132.3 Billion LKR (2011)
Minister responsible Hon. Champika Ranawaka
Deputy Minister responsible Premalal Jayasekara
Government-owned corporation executives Mr.W.B.Ganegala, Chairman
Prof K. Kapila C. K. Perera,
Vice Chairman
Parent department Department Of Power And Energy
Parent Government-owned corporation Lanka Electricity Company
Website www.ceb.lk

The Ceylon Electricity Board (also abbreviated as CEB), is the largest electricity company in Sri Lanka. With a market share of nearly 100%, it controls all major functions of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retailing in Sri Lanka. It is one of the only two on-grid electricity companies in the country; the other being Lanka Electricity Company. The company earned approximately LKR110.9 billion in 2008, with a total of nearly 4.1 million consumer accounts.

Opened in 1969, the company now has a total installed capacity of 2,684 MW, of which approximately 1,290 MW is from thermal energy, and 1,207 MW is from hydroelectricity. Due to low wind resource, rough terrain and poor road conditions in Sri Lanka, CEB owns only one 3 MW wind farm in Hambantota, known as the Hambantota Wind Farm. The farm consists of five turbines, measuring 600 KW each. CEB also manages numerous hydroelectric dams such as the Victoria Dam, and power plants such as the Norocholai Coal Power Station.

Electricity Generation

Hydro power

Electricity generation by CEB is primarily done by hydro power. Hydro power is the oldest and most dependant source of electricity generation,taking a share of nearly 48% of the total available grid capacity in December 2012, and 27.9% of power generated in 2012.[1] Hydropower generation facilities has been constantly under development since the introduction of the national grid,but is currently declining due to the exhaustion of the resource

In 2014,Media Spokesperson at the CEB, Senajith Dassanayake said the generation of hydro power has dropped to 35%. As a result, 60 percent of the electricity needs have to be fulfilled by thermal energy[2]

Thermal Power

The Norocholai Coal Power Station, the only coal-fired power station in the country is owned by CEB, It was commissioned in late-2011 and finished in 2014,under loans from Export-Import Bank of China, It added further 300 megawatts of electrical capacity to the grid.[3] the Sampur Coal Power Station, is currently under consideration in Trincomalee.[4]

Development

In 2011,Ceylon Electricity Board opened a new coal power plant named Puttalam Lakvijaya. On 13 February 2011 it was synchronized with the system[5]

On 17 September 2014,US$1.35 billion coal-fired Norochcholai Power Station was commissioned by the Chinese President Xi Jinping on his visit to Sri Lanka.The Export-Import Bank of China provided a US$450 million loan for the first 300 megawatt unit at the power plant. [6]

Criticism

Blackouts and Shut downs

Ceylon Electricity Board is widely criticized due to its frequents power cuts. It has lost 25.5 billion rupees in 2011 and run up debts of 121 billion rupees with a petroleum distributor and independent power producers. [7]

On October 2010, during a test run, a fire broke out in the chimney due to clogging.Splits in the cooling system piping triggered a shutdown down of the power plant.The Ceylon Electricity Board decided to institute blackouts to households and Industries for three hours a day until the fault is fully repaired.[8]

On December 2013, more leaks were discovered in the cooling system, The CEB decided that the plant was too dangerous to operate at the moment. Ceylon Electricity board requested assistance from CMEC, and the company said that it would take about six weeks to fix the faults. After frantic negotiations, the plant was repaired by CMEC and brought back online.A day later it failed once more and was shut down again for six more days.

In 2014,Minister of Power and Energy,Hon. Pavithra Wanniarachchi, addressed the parliament saying that, out of the 1086 days since the Norochcholai power plant had been operating, it had been offline for 271 days. [9]

Billing

In 2012,CEB lost 61.2 billion rupees and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation which supplied fuel below cost 89.7 billion rupees.To cover up the loss CEB increased power tariffs in large scales.The CEB expected to get revenues of 223 billion rupees from the price hike, or 45 billion rupees more than the earlier tariff and still lost 33 billion rupees in 2013 on total expenses of 256 billion rupees.[10]

On 16 September 2014,After officially opening a completed $1.35 billion Chinese-financed 900 MW coal power plant project,Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa addressed the nation saying that the electricity bills of the people will be reduced by 25%.[11] The CEB stated that it will take about two weeks to come up with a process of creating electricity bills to reflect the reduction in prices.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Demand Side Management - Ceylon Electricity Board". Retrieved September 20, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Generation of hydro-power has decreased – observes CEB". Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  3. ↑ No more coal plants, retrieved 2010-08-08
  4. ↑ Ministry: Current energy projects, retrieved 2010-08-07
  5. ↑ "CEB Annual Financial Statement,2011". Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  6. ↑ "A New Coal Power Station the Coal Industry Won't Boast About". Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Sri Lanka CEB loses rs25.5bn". Retrieved September 18, 2014.
  8. ↑ "A New Coal Power Station the Coal Industry Won't Boast About". Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  9. ↑ "A New Coal Power Station the Coal Industry Won't Boast About". Retrieved September 19, 2014.
  10. ↑ "Sri Lanka power tariffs raised - Update ". Retrieved September 20, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Sri Lanka cuts energy price after start of Chinese-funded coal power plant". Retrieved September 20, 2014.
  12. ↑ "CEB says electricity bill reduction will not reflect immediately". Retrieved September 20, 2014.

External links