300 Mw Coal Power Plant example essay topic

Power crisis - be practical - act JR likely E. Carlo Fernando Ex-Consulting Engineer, CEB The Accelerated Mahaweli Hydro Power Projects were planned to meet peak loads. In this plan thermal power is to be provided for base load. Coal was selected for th Power crisis - be practical - act JR like by Ananda S Wijayarathne The Accelerated Mahaweli Hydro Power Projects were planned to meet peak loads. Coal was selected for this purpose because it is the cheapest, most reliable and practical source of energy for Sri Lanka. In contrast oil is the most expensive fuel and unreliable. The oil producing region the Middle East is most volatile as today's Gulf War shows.

In the CEB's attempt to go in for coal power, Norochcholai was selected for the project by certain Engineers in the CEB who did not have anything to do with the coal power study at that time. As consultant to the CEB who monitored these studies all throughout, I disagreed with this unsuitable site. Rightly the President CBK cancelled this site in 1998. The Prime Minister Rail Wickremesinghe too cancelled this site in March, 2002. These cancellations have been made on the very adverse coal shipping problems Norochcholai is faced with and on security issues.

It is in no way related to environmental objections or to election or to religion related protests. The President instructed the CEB to select another site suitable for the project. Since then four years have passed but the CEB has done nothing by way of carrying out the President's order. If as it is claimed there are planners of the highest calibre for generation planning, how is it that these planners remain dumbstruck and are unable to even find an alternative site.

Fairly recently an energy planner who frequently writes strongly supporting Norochcholai made a bold statement in the Lakbima - 17.03. 2003 that neither the President nor the Minister of Power and Energy has any right to poke their fingers into plans drawn up by these superior planners. Remember a coal power project is a major civil engineering task. What is happening here is that certain electrical engineers think that they are experts on everything - expressways, harbours, water supplies, canals, tunnels, dams, river flows and what not. This is like an eye surgeon attempting to perform a heart operation- bypass surgery.

The CEB states that many coal power plants are required. Then why not allow Barclay Moslem Consortium to set up a 300 MW plant at the site of their choice and permit any other power developers also to set up 300 MW coal power plants at sites of their choice, on the same terms as that of the BMC - here no Government guarantees for project funding are to be granted; planning will be carried out by the developers at their costs; while they would be committed to sell power to the CEB at US$ cents 4 per unit for a period of 30 years. Private sector expertise will surely find the best site for coal power plants engineering and security wise. They will also propose the best plans because the whole investment about Rs. 35,000 million will be the Consortium's private funds. This is how the BOI projects operate.

Then why place obstacles. Commissioning dates can be arranged to suit the system. The Government has only to be concerned about preventing undesirable elements with dubious motives from getting a foothold in the country under cover of coming in as developers and building projects. Act like JR In the same way several major hydro power projects were executed under the Accelerated Mahaweli, another coal power plant say 300 MW in the south should be taken up for reconstruction. In this case we should try to do just as J.R. did. He got the Accelerated Mahaweli Scheme constructed in record time.

In 1977 when the UNP came into power I was in the Water Resources Board, when J.R. having read my articles, sent for me and asked me what advice I could give him on water resources and power. Minister Gamini Dissanayake was also present. My reply was given in two sentences. i) There is an excellent Mahaweli Plan prepared by a UNDP team ii) Make special appeals to friendly governments like the UK, Germany, Sweden to construct these major projects Following this advice J.R. got the projects done speedily with the help of these foreign governments. Similarly now the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka should make a special appeal to the Prime Ministers of both Japan and UK to set up a 300 MW coal power plant on a bilateral basis at the Mawella site. Both countries have shown interest in this project. Mawella is the best site for the project after Trincomalee.

Let the Japanese money set aside for the run of the river Upper Kot male Project with no reservoirs which could produce only about 250 million energy / year be diverted to this 300 MW coal power plant, which will produce 1800 million units / year, to produce solid base load energy which is a dire necessity in the system. By this method the coal power project at Mawella can be commissioned in 3 years. However all such ideas will be stifled because any positive action to commission a coal power plant is complete anathema to our powerful diesel lobby. So the minister is duped and taken up for a ride. It is absolutely certain if the CEB's so called optimum and at least cost generation plans are to be followed, and when a minimum 3000 options are considered to find an alternative as claimed by an energy planner in I ESL News, nothing will be done and the country will face serious set backs to the industrial sector. When J.R. was getting the Mahaweli Hydro Power plants constructed in a series, the engineers did not favour such a move.

These least cost planners claimed there would be excess power and they hastily made two visits to New Delhi to sell power to India. The public were even made to believe that after the Mahaweli Projects no more power plants would be required. When base load power had to follow the Mahaweli peaking hydro power plants in the late 1980's, these absurd least cost plans were used to push the coal power plant to the distant year 2007- shown in the CEB Generation Master Plan of 1989 - now being followed. It is now announced that coal power will be set up in 2008, probably then pushed to 2009 and cunningly shoved oblivion.

At a seminar on the Mahaweli schemes with the Minister Gamini Dissanayake in the chair it was decided that the Mahaweli programme was coming to an end, the Mahaweli Development Board (MDB) should be entrusted with coal power development. The minister accepted my decision seriously and said that he would see to that. That week itself he invited the CEB senior officials and the consultants to discuss this matter. Though it was my idea I was deliberately not taken for the meeting. Naturally the proposal was sidetracked by the CEB. In Australia after completion of Sydney Mountain hydro power project, that organization had taken on the coal power developments.

The Housing and Construction Organisation there too is now engaged in coal power projects. In contrast to Sri Lanka the excellent MDB has been disbanded, well experienced engineers are disposed and the CEB does not now seem to have even a coal power branch - this is how the diesel lobby acts. Zero growth The following are excerpts from the article " Power crisis bites Phillipines" which appeared in the Financial Times (London) February 11, 1992. I have reported this article many times in my previous writings. Let me repeat it. "But their response to the power crisis has been to adopt expensive quick fix solutions including the purchase of large mounted diesel generators.

Such increases in the generating capacity in the past few years have come from these mobile barges and from the 200 MW gas turbine project. The turbines were supposed to be used occasionally to top up supplies at times of peak demand, but their continued running is now essential simply to maintain the base load. The current power shortages are profitable for the foreign manufacturers of generators and power barges, but not for the Phillipines. President Ramos solved the power crisis by getting a 700 MW coal power plant implemented in a record speed, just in three years".

In spite of the wide publicity given at seminars and news media on the above, the powerful diesel lobby under the pretext of meaningless least cost plans pushes steadily on promoting expensive and unreliable diesels. During the Budget debate - April 1, 2002 The Minister of Energy said coal power will be introduced in 2009 and in the meantime the country is to be fooled with a series of oil burning diesel sets etc. as mentioned - 300 MW; 110 MW; 197 MW (2002); 300 MW (2009); 300 MW (2010) plus two other coal power plants. These will be sited at Trincomalee, Norochcholai or Hambantota. (The Island, 2nd April, 2002). But Norochcholai has been ruled out by both the the President and the Prime Minister.

This is the advice the Energy Minister has been given by his Least Cost Energy Experts in the Ministry and the CEB. Doesn't it sound like a stupid, ill-conceived joke to coincide with the April Fools' Day. We can judge the hypocritical stance of these Least Cost Planners because Mawella for coal power is never spoken of, though it has been proved the best site in the present context, for the project. A destabilized economy and ZERO industrial growth is the sad fate that awaits Sri Lanka in the years to come. Those who are mainly responsible for this crime are the diesel lobby in the energy sector and the foreign funded environmentalists.

The real destruction of the economy is being hatched not by the North East conflict but by our unreasonable most expensive power system devoid of base load power essential for setting up of industries thereby generating employment.