ECONOMYNEXT – An Australia-based global renewable energy developer has proposed to set up a solar power plant of 700mw with a battery energy storage system at Poonakary Lake in Kilinochchi.
The Cabinet, this week, approved the proposal presented by the Power and Energy Minister to accept the project proposal presented by United Solar Energy Sri Lanka in principle, and to appoint a Cabinet negotiation committee to evaluate the proposal and make recommendations.
“This is a large-scale project. I think this would be the largest such project in the North and East,” Cabinet Spokesman Minister Bandula Gunawardena said. The plant is expected to generate 134mw.
The Northern Provincial Council, the Northern Provincial Irrigation Department and the Agricultural Development Department have agreed to grant 1,080 acres of the shallow area of the Poonakary Lake to United Solar Energy Sri Lanka on a 35-year lease agreement.
United Solar Energy Sri Lanka is the local arm of the global United Solar Group which has a presence in 19 countries.
The company partners with governments by creating a local special purpose vehicle, its website states: “Through SPVs we build a large workforce network of contractors and experienced project specialists.
“We tap into the workforce of local communities in each country and oversee the construction via our SPV experienced site managers and fly in engineers from our manufacturers.”
The Poonakary Lake power plant project includes a proposal to construct three anicuts around the Lake to prevent the ingress of sea water at a cost of 13.5 million US dollars.
The project will have a foreign direct investment of 1,727 million US dollars; of this 500 million US dollars will be segregated for domestic project components.
Solar energy is increasingly popular worldwide and is used for generating electricity, heating and desalinating water.
Sri Lanka’s state-owned Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has said it hopes to increase renewable energy sources to 70 percent of its energy generation mix by 2030, and reduce dependency on fossil fuels.
This will require the addition of considerable generating capacity from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind during the next 6 years. A large component of its present renewable energy sources is hydro – major and mini.
In 2021, the SOE saw 415mw generated from rooftop solar. Rooftop solar made up 2.3 percent, and independent power producers accounted for 0.9 percent of CEB’s energy generation mix.
The island receives a significant amount of solar radiation across all its geographical regions, the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority says.
But the intensity of solar irradiation in lowland areas, like the North, is particularly high compared to mountainous regions where there is more cloud cover.
However, solar and wind power do not provide a continuous, consistent output. Their output varies with the intensity and availability of the resource.
Therefore, high capacity energy storage systems need to be installed in such power systems that could carry out fast power adjustments to offset generation from varying solar and wind resources. (Colombo/Sep14/2023)