Partial Blackouts

Engineers of the striking state monopoly power supplier the Ceylon Electricity Board are threatening to pull out base load thermal plants including AES Kelanitissa off the grid shortly, resulting in rotating blackouts around the island.











Engineers of the striking state monopoly power supplier the Ceylon Electricity Board are threatening to pull out base load thermal plants including AES Kelanitissa off the grid shortly, resulting in rotating blackouts around the island. "We have decided to take trade union action and not generate out of thermal if the generating cost is above the cost of supply," senior member of the CEB Engineers Union, Lakshitha Weerasinghe told LBO on Saturday.

"We have taken a decision and we will be starting with two base combined cycle plants.

The 165 MW AES Kelanitissa plant and the CEB's own 165 MW combined cycle plant, as well as 75MW of small gas turbines," Weerasinghe said.

That in effect takes a chunk of base load generation, resulting in load shedding throughout the day to meet the shortfall in supply.

"With a shortfall in generation, there will be rotating power cuts like in the energy crisis of 1996 during dry periods," Weerasinghe said.

Unions are still in talks as to when to begin acti