Power cut carried out on 03 February by CEB could have been avoided: PUCSL

Feb 27, 2020 (LBO) – Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) says that the load shedding programme carried out on 03 February 2020 could have been avoided.

"Apparently the system had enough capacity to supply the full demand during the period of load shedding," the PUCSL said in an analysis report.

"However, if the analysis has not considered any salient reasons the Transmission Licensee had that justify the load shedding carried out on February 3, 2020, the transmission licensee is expected to provide such reasons to the Commission."

Observations from PUCSL

Figure 2 summarises the approximate actual scenario present on the day of rotational load shedding carried out. The key points that can be extracted from the figure are:

• Apparently the system had enough capacity to supply the full demand during the period of load shedding.

• West coast power plant was required to supply the night peak demand. With the Westcoast resuming generation after 1500 Hrs, the total demand during the day could have been fully met.

• In the wort case scenario, i.e. the under the absence of the West Coast power plant, demand could have been met with limited shedding ( approximately 105 MW maximum for a period less than 2 hours during the night peak.

• The need to shed load during night peak due to the absence of West Coast power plant may have been avoided or lessen by shifting Kotmale operation to the night peak period.

• Even under the shifting of Kotmale operation to the night peak period did not have any apparent impact on supplying the actual demand(Without shedding load) during the period from 1045 hrs to 1702 hrs, since adequate generation was present to meet the demand during this period

• The unavailability of Westcoast power plant was identified in the Day-ahead forecast prepared by the CEB on February 02, 2020. Hence, if the availability of Westcoast power plant was uncertain, the Transmission Licensee had sufficient time to obtain the approval of the Commission under Condition 30 (10) of the Transmission Licence, prior to the load shedding required during night peak.