The government is committed towards adding more solar and wind energy to the national grid, and has promised to make the national grid a smart grid in another five years time, said Ajith C Perera Deputy Minister of Power and Renewable Energy.
According to Minister, Sri Lanka is to call tenders to purchase 875 megawatts of power shortly.
He made these commitments speaking at the launch of the ‘Green Energy 2017 Champion’ Campaign , organized by the German Federal Foreign Office together with the Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy of Sri Lanka, and the project implementing partner Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority .
In order to add more solar and wind energy to national grid, it is necessary to have more storing capacity and safeguard smart systems in place.
Storage of energy is still high in another parts of the world as well, the minister said adding that as per the opinions of the specialists in Sri Lanka, the country can add more than 500 megawatts from solar energy without having the storage capacities.
During the next one and a half years, it is planned to add that capacity to the national grid. “As per the policy, in power generation, the government will invest in infrastructure, development of the systems, but the government will not invest in power generation.”
“As we have introduced fair tendering process, there has been a good response in the private sector both locally and globally to invest in this sector.”
With regard to solar power, Sri Lanka opened a competitive tender in this regard as result, the country managed to reduce tariff from Rs 22.10 per unit to Rs 17.01 per unit.In 2016, May the government opened the same tender with regard to the wind energy, through that tariffs were reduced from Rs 19 per unit to Rs 12.29 per unit, registering more than 40% reduction.
Speaking at the event, Jorn Rohde, German Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives, stressed that political consensus is crucial for implementing and persisting renewal energy initiatives to meet set targets in the energy sector of Sri Lanka.
The ambassador also stressed the need to initiate climate mitigation efforts by both individual and state level to avert foreseeable environmental perils.
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