Despite the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in an economic down turn the there is no slow down in the development of renewable energy projects said Chairperson/CEO, INGINE Lanka Private Limited Dr. F. Sujatha Bondarenko.
The pandemic has crippled traditional coal-and gas-fired power generation. At the same time, global electricity generation from renewable energy sources increased by 10-15%! Green energy is slowly, but steadily winning back the market from “traditional” energy sources – coal, oil and nuclear power plants. If in 2000 it accounted for 21.8% of the commissioned power capacity, in 2019 it accounted for 34.7% she said.
Of course, in many parts of the world, the development of renewable energy faces significant obstacles. For example, there is a lot of oil and gas in Russia and the countries of the Middle East – this process is not as fast there as in countries where there is no oil and gas. For example, in Japan, Israel, and Korea. These countries are becoming flagships in breakthrough technologies in the field of renewable energy. In Sri Lanka, there is no oil and gas in practice. At least their reserves have not yet been fully explored, and those deposits that have been discovered have very deep deposits, which significantly increases the cost of their extraction.
 Dr. F. Sujatha Bondarenko.
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For the first time in South Asia, INGINE Lanka Private Limited and INGINE Inc. in South Korea will introduce breakthrough INWave technology to generate Green energy to Sri Lanka starting from the Oceans of Southern Province.
Followiing is a Q:A with Chairperson/CEO, INGINE Lanka Private Limited Dr. F. Sujatha Bondarenko,
Question: So the pandemic will not interrupt the offensive process of developing “green technologies”?
Answer: It’s just the opposite. The crisis and the pandemic are certainly creating difficulties, however, it is an opportunity to switch to “green technologies” without pain.
The drop in electricity consumption caused by the economic crisis and quarantine restrictions may allow our country to abandon coal-fired power plants, as our President has repeatedly said. See for yourself: the pandemic has shown that many countries, not only in Europe but also in Asia, are able to build economic development policies that pay attention to people’s health. We are talking about social distancing, remote work, regular testing of people’s health, health support, and other measures.
In this sense, the transition to renewable energy sources for several reasons corresponds to the trend of prioritizing human health over technology. First, due to the growing number of respiratory diseases, renewable energy sources will become the best alternative to coal and other combustible analogues. Second, the majority of power plants operating on renewable energy sources can be controlled remotely. “Smart stations” work remotely: employees sit at home or in the office and manage energy projects using a computer.
Despite the fact that many projects and industries were frozen until better times due to the crisis, the International Energy Agency believes that renewable energy will be the only energy-generating segment that will show growth compared to last year. In any case, renewable energy will not suffer as much from the crisis as traditional energy sources.
Question: Bondarenko, you spent the last ten years in South Korea, where your husband was a Russian Trade Representative in South Korea. Apparently, long-term contracts with the flagships of Korean business allowed you to make Korean investments in our country?
Answer: I was born and raised in Sri Lanka. Even while I was in Russia (from 1998 to 2010 Authors note), before my husband’s business trip to Seoul, I tried to do everything to make Russian businesses pay attention to my country, so that business contacts were more extensive and effective.
While staying in Korea, I drew attention to the success of Koreans in the development of “green energy”. This is how the first investment in Sri Lanka was organized. Ingine Lanka was established, which has been successfully working in the field of wave and tidal energy for four years, using the latest Korean technologies in this area. I am currently negotiating with the largest Russian company in the field of solar energy, the Hevel group.
The goal is to localize the production of solar modules in Sri Lanka and participate in tenders for the construction of a Technology Park and other government projects. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of Korean and Russian investments.
Question: But because of the pandemic, countries started to close borders, and the flow of technology transfer significantly decreased?
Answer: Yes. But first of all, it affected tourist flows. The hotels are empty, and the service, which has been developing for many years, is in a very poor state. Of course, specialists who flew to Sri Lanka every two months can’t get here now. This will significantly complicate the work, but we have increased the workload of our employees in the Colombo office, and we are taking on more functions that were previously assigned to our foreign specialists.
Question: How do you see the distribution of shares of various types of renewable energy in Sri Lanka?
Answer: This is not an easy question. For example, in 2000, hydropower accounted for approximately 93% of the total amount of energy generated from renewable sources, and in 2019 this share fell to 47%. This was due to an increase in the volume of electricity generated by solar and wind power plants. Ingin Lanka is one of the leading companies working in the field of wave and tidal energy today.
We are steadily increasing capacity, which does not exclude our active work on “solar” projects with Russia. As they say in the East, “the only way is to plant your foot on it”!
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