Minister of Power and Renewable Energy Mr. Ranjith Siyambalapitiya declared open Sri Lanka’s first hybrid power plant in Eluvathivu Island, Jaffna on 10th February 2017. Together with the honorable minister, Deputy Minister Mr. Ajith P. Perera, higher rank officers from the CEB and Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority and Professor Atputharajah from Faculty of Engineering were attended. Eng. D.K.P.U. Gunathilake, Deputy General Manager (North) Ceylon Electricity Board together with his team of Engineers organized this event very successfully.
The new power plant has a capacity to generate 60 KW electricity using wind power, solar power, and diesel. The Asian Development Bank and the Ceylon Electricity Board financed the project at a cost of Rs. 187 million. The project is aimed at promoting green energy. One unit generated by this power plant will cost about Rs. 9.14, according to the Power and Renewable Energy Ministry. The project contains the below items as for power generation requirement (i) a 30kW diesel generator, (ii) 46kWp roof-mounted PV over buildings, (iii) 6 units of 3.5kW (total of 21kW) wind generators and (iv) 20 units of 6.74kWh (total of 135kWh) Li-Ion battery storage system. It in one of the most important project in-terms of technology transfer while giving the best benefits to small islands. It is the best model for the Engineering students to learn the technology in such small system.
This project was proposed as one of the research outcome in 2004 (https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:723895/FULLTEXT01.pdf). Master of Science Thesis was submitted to KTH School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Energy Technology Division of EKV at Stockholm. Mr. K. Ratneswaran, Planning Engineer from the CEB, did the research part. It was so interesting and very promising results obtained from this thesis. Then a team of engineers of Eng. K. Ratneswaran, Eng. R. Alex, Eng. J. Amalendran, Eng. V. Kogulasingam, with the advice from Dr. A. Atputharajah, Dr. N. Mithulananthan, Eng. P. Vigneswaran, Eng. Sunith Fernando, Eng. Upali Darnagama, Dr. Sugathapala, Eng. Sumetha, Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya prepared full document on this and submitted to the SEA and CEB. It is very pleased to see it has come to the reality today with the help of Asian Development Bank support.
