HE the president of Srilanka
Dear Sir
FINDING
A SOLUTION TO POWER CRISIS IN SRI LANKA
I have the
honour to submit following proposal for your consideration.
Srilanka has
a crisis situation in connection with generation of power. It appears from
available data that the short fall of power is about 500 MWs during peak hours.
And it also appears that this gap between the requirement and supply occurs
mostly during the peak hours, from 1800 to 2200.
If the above
shortfall can be generated with renewable energy hitherto untapped, this crisis
can be overcome once and forever with following added advantages, among others.
1. Billions of
foreign exchange can be saved by reducing importing of fuel from outside to
generate that 500 MW of power.
2. Since
this energy is renewable, environmental damage by using fossil fuel can be
minimized.
3.
Uncertainty of electricity supply, which is extremely damaging for the economy
of the country, can be easily removed from economic planning of the
country.
For this
purpose it is proposed to install a floating solar panel system on the water
body of the Victoria reservoir. Victoria reservoir has 23 sq KM of surface on
top of the reservoir.
A 500 MW solar
power plant requires approximately 5 Sq KMs of surface area. So Victoria
reservoir can easily host the proposed system. But installing the system alone doesn’t
provide a solution to present power shortage for our national grid because this
solar system generates power only during daytime, and not during peak hours,
when we need it most.
So we need to
store this energy generated during day time at some place and utilize that at
the peak hours. The technologies being developed for storing energy are
twofold. That’s storing in a battery system and a pumped hydro. Both these systems are developing fast and
many countries are beginning to construct such systems.
Of these two
methods, the pump hydro system seems better suited for our proposal because it
is simpler and investment seems lesser. In fact the investment for pumped hydro
is about half compared to a lithium-ion battery storage system.
A pumped
hydro system works as depicted in the diagram. In simple terms the water from reservoir used
for generating power by rotating the turbines, are pumped back to the reservoir
from the turbine level using the power generated by solar system during the day
time in off peak hours. Hence the power generated by solar system is stored as
potential energy in the reservoir, to be used to generate power during the peak
hours through the turbines.
The efficiency of a pumped hydro system is in the range of
70-85% and this is only slightly lower compared to lithium ion battery storage
system. It is interesting to note that USA uses disused mines also as storages
for pumped hydro systems.
Following is
a table that shows the countries that utilize pumped hydro systems extensively.
|
Country |
Pumped storage
generating capacity (GW) |
Total installed generating
capacity (GW) |
|
China |
32
|
1646 |
|
Japan |
28.3 |
322.2 |
|
United States |
22.6 |
1074.0 |
|
Spain |
8.0 |
106.7 |
|
Italy |
7.1 |
117.0 |
Combined system like
this is most suited for country like Srilanka because of the Monsoonal rain
pattern it has. Because when the water
levels recedes to certain level because of the reduction in rainfall, the pump
hydro component can be activated to slow down the regression of the water body until
the next monsoon. Hence there is a pattern in the rain fall in Srilanka ; a
country with a monsoonal rain fall, with certain degree of predictability we
are at advantage over countries with less predictability in rain fall, for this
kind of a project.
Internationally there are many investors who would be
interested in a project of this magnitude and state of the art technology, and
government can facilitate it as a BOOT project which will make it a FDI project
helping our foreign currency situation too.
If there are any objections to this concept paper I am
prepared to defend it at any forum and prove that this is workable and will be
one of the best solutions available at the moment for the country, to overcome
energy shortage. Further if I am entrusted with the implementation of the
project I am prepared to raise funds and coordinate the project.
My contact details are as follows
0702526565
0812425453
Yours sincerely
Lakshman T B Illangakoon
Rear Admiral (Rtd)
