‘The Least Cost Long Term Generation Expansion Plan is one of the most important plan in a nation as it plans the electricity generation for the country for the next 20 years to ensure energy security as the least cost plant mix for each year is identified by analyzing and evaluating various technology options. It serves as a guideline to facilitate the decision makers in making decisions in line with national policy objectives, by exploring and evaluating various generation technology options in different situations,’ Damitha Kumarasinghe, Director General of Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka said.

“By opening the path to the public, we hope to involve all the related and interested parties in the decision-making process through opinions, views, alternative proposals and suggestions on the LCLTGEP 2018-2037 and therefore we hope to increase the transparency of the approval process and increase public participation in the decision-making process of Sri Lanka’s most important energy generation plan.”

The Sri Lankan power system had a total installed capacity of approximately 4018 MW by the end of the year 2016 with a total dispatchable capacity of 3538 MW, including non-dispatchable plants of capacity 516 MW owned by private sector developers.

The majority of dispatchable capacity is owned by CEB (i.e. about 82% of the total dispatchable capacity), which includes 1379.25MW of hydro and 1510.7 MW of thermal generation capacity. Balance dispatchable capacity, which is totally thermal plants, is owned by Independent Power Producers (IPPs).

Sri Lanka recorded 2453MW of maximum demand in 2016 and generated a total of 14250GWh of electricity in the same year.

The generation demand is expected to grow 5.9 percent per annum from 2018 -2022 while in addition the peak demand is expected to grow at 5.1 percent per annum, the data shows. The same expected to grow 4.9 percent per annum from 2018-2037 which the peak demand is expected cross at 4.5 percent.

According to the expected growth, it is identified that the grid should have an installed capacity of 4269 MW should in the beginning of 2018 and 10783 MW by the end of 2037, LCLTGEP data shows. The proposed energy mix for the next twenty years consist, major hydro, coal, pumped storage hydro, combined cycle, oil and gas turbine plants.

According to the plan, least cost has been a major concern while environmentally friendliness has been an added value in identifying the technology options for the generation mix of the next 20 years.

The state utility plans to add 15MW of mini hydro power, 160MW of solar power, 5MW of biomass, 320MW of oil based power to the national grid in the year 2018.

From 2018- 2037, Sri Lanka plans to add 842MW of Major Hydro, 215MW of Mini Hydro, 1389MW of Solar, 1205MW of Wind,85MW of Bio Mass, 425MW of oil Based Power, 1500MW of Natural Gas, 2700MW of Coal power into the electricity generation system. In total the Indian Ocean Island plans on 8361MW of new additions (including the committed power plants) to the national grid in the period of 20 years from 2018.