The Next Frontier of Solar Energy - Hybrid PV

sorry.., i rarely had time to write an article from this topic. So please google this topic. It's really interesting. I'll try my level best to make post ASAP. This topic is all about the Hybrid PV technology which uses both Photovoltaic as well as Thermal power to harness Solar power from a single device. Check this out....

Solar Powered Irrigation - West Africa

A way to change their life.... way to change our WORLD..!! not just another
video .... check this out....

Japan for Space-Besed Solar Power

In this blog I have mentioned early about the importance of space based solar power in near future. Yes .! Would you believe..?? Now it’s becoming a reality. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. Japanese are trying for harness the solar power in the cyber space within next few decades. Most probably it’ll be around 2030. That solar power would be harvested as part of Japan’s Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which solar arrays of several square kilo meters in size would run in a geosynchronous orbit above the Japan and the beam which is collected the solar energy down to receivers on earth via lasers or by microwave radiation. The conveying technology is to be finalized soon.

Solar power in space has many key advantages which contribute to low costs. As I mention in previous post, solar energy in space is much more concentrated than here on Earth and obstacles such as clouds and even nightfall can be avoid.

There are huge major barriers to overcome in achieving such a broad goal. Mainly cost. Others are transporting the components to space, accurately and safely beaming the solar power to earth, security issues and so on. Japan has enormous experiences in this project over last 11 years. Apparently, they are now in track. If they carry on like this, they’ll be definitely boasting about the first ever power oriented space shuttle at the space by 2030.

Focus on Trends in Power Generation (An Interview which I have done with Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya for the EESoc NewsLetter)

Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya graduated from University of Moratuwa in Electrical Engineering in 1982, and holds a PhD in Electric Power Engineering from University of Cambridge UK. He initially worked in the Energy Efficiency Task Force of the Ministry of Energy in Sri Lanka. Thereafter for 10 years, he worked in the power generation planning divisions of Ceylon Electricity Board in Sri Lanka and in the Consolidated Electric Company in Saudi Arabia.

Since 1999, he works as an international energy consultant. He is a visiting lecturer at University of Moratuwa. He was the President of Sri Lanka Energy Managers Association between 2004-2006. This is an interview with him.

1.) What do you think about the present scenario of oil dominated power generation in Sri Lanka?

Presently we get approximately 50% out of energy on national grid from oil fired power plants. So the cost of oil is $70 per barrel. Expenses of oil dominate the expenses of the power sector, Which is put on the utilize sector causes a heavy burden to the customer.

2.) Sri Lanka is said to have one of the highest electricity tariffs. What do you think are the reasons for this?

Yes. Sri Lanka has one of the highest electricity tariffs and even with the high electricity tariffs, Sri Lankan power sector is not financially breaking even. So there is a problem of levels of tariff which makes the sector unviable, then even with those unviable levels of tariff, it is not acceptable or reasonable on customer point of view. So these two issues are burdening both the customer and supplier. About 85% of total cost of our electricity industry, accounts for running the CEB. As a result of 15 years of mismanagement of the decision making process of the power generation in Sri Lanka, the average cost of producing power which could have been about 7/=, today is about 12/=. That includes the benefits from old hydro plants which are producing electricity very cheaply.

3.) The National Energy Policy of Sri Lanka is to achieve 10% of renewable power by 2015. Do you think we will be able to achieve it?

It is a tough task. Last year Sri Lanka produced a 4.2% of electricity on the grid using non-conventional renewable energy sources. So the target is to take this 4.2% to 10% by 2015. Demand for electricity also growing. If you go by the most recently forecast published by the CEB, energy that will have to produced from non conventional resources will be about 1500GWh by 2015. Last year we produced about 400GWh. So we have to generate 4 times what we produced last year by 2015 if we are to reach the national target. It is going to be a tough task in terms of making the required investment as well as getting the energy out of these renewable energy plants. But it is not impossible. It will have cost implications. End of the day we can’t tell the customers that sorry we have achieve the target but your electricity bill is going to be same as today. We have to finally give the benefit to the customer.

4.) What are the special programs that have been launched by the government or by private sector to achieve this?

To know the exact programs that are going on, you have to discuss with the SEA (Sustainable Energy Authority) who has the mandate and responsibility to take the Sri Lanka to the 10% target as stated in the energy policy. But I can tell you what is going on. All the 400GWh last year were from mini hydros. Probably if we develop all the remaining mini hydros within the reasonable cost profile we may just about double that of energy by 2015. That is also a very ambitious target for mini hydro itself. So another 800GWh is to be produced from non mini hydros. In terms of overall cost mini hydro is cheaper. Other most promising technologies are wind power and bio mass. There are several difficulties in these two technologies. Wind power is proven worldwide but not proven commercially in Sri Lanka. And wind power is more expensive than mini hydro plants as well as bio mass. But wind is flowing whereas bio mass you have to grow. So I believe that next phase of power renewable energy development in Sri Lanka is, after mini hydro, will be Wind. Concerning bio mass, Our first focus must be to get bio mass which I mean rice husk or a certain amount of straw dust as well. As you know there are two power plants which are using rice husk for the power generation. One is in Trincomalee which uses rice husk plus other agricultural waste. So studies have indicated the total potential of rice husk fired power generation is about 20MW. Our first priority is to help the investors to get those resources. Investors also have their own problems. Rice husk has no value apparently at the moment. But somebody feels the commercial value there; many people will start claiming ownership to the rice husk. So that has to be resolved. Apart from that, we have couple of bio-mass plants; so called Dendro power plants. I mean by dendro, the fire wood that is purposely, systematically and commercially grown for the of power generation. We have not come anywhere near to having a commercially viable bio mass plantation. So it is going to be tough. In addition if we can have about 200MW from wind, that would be great. Most people would say why not 300MW and why not 500MW from wind. Yes theoretically possible but within this time frame to reach the target that seems to be the order of magnitude of different technologies. It also has cost implications. Wind will be easy but will be more expensive. I believe that if we forget the economy, possibly we can reach that target by 2015.

5.) What impact will net metering have on the installed capacity of renewable energy?

Net metering was approved by the government one year ago. But sadly it is not still fully operational. So the operational response was handed over to the LECO and CEB. LECO announced it officially but not really operational yet. But CEB has not even announced it officially. So the principle and the thinking behind was that, presently renewable energy based electricity is reserved to an exclusive group of so called investors. But through net metering we give an opportunity to anybody who has an electricity connection to participating in renewable energy based electricity generation. So in terms of the potential I expect basically customer enthusiasm to be in 3 areas. One is solar PV based generation in urban households and commercial buildings. Secondly wind based power generation in coastal and hill country tourist resorts. Thirdly micro hydro based power generation in the hill country associated with the tea industry. How many Mega Watts that will come out of these entirely depends on the customer perception of economics. According to government policy approved, government will not compel anybody to set up a net metering facility in his premises. So there will be people who forget the economic and set up a system and contribute to renewable energy generation. The solar energy and wind energy in that scale will definitely be more expensive. Real national benefit of net metering will come from hydro. According to our information there are 40 micro hydros operating off the grid but in close proximity to the grid at the moment. These are 50KW to 100KW micro hydros associate with estates. So the real national benefit is to get these all micro hydro connected to the national grid from the net metering principle. So when the tea industry is not running the electricity goes back to the grid. But I don’t expect net metering to make a major impact on the system.

6.) What about the initial cost for the customer?

CEB & LECO should announce their cost so that customer has to purchase the protection equipment ensure that when distribution is switched off for maintains or whatever, the voltage at the customer level will collapse. So the protection system has to be purchased. Then the two way meter. Two way meters are also expensive and LECO is looking for a cost effective solution for a single phase customer. If you have to buy a two way meter, it will be too expensive. May be LECO will fixed three meters. One meter will be used for your generation and one for the purchasing from LECO and other for your household consumption. I do not know exactly what will be the cost. People have been talking cost even up to 100,000 LKR, for the controller and the meter. I believe that we need to bring down it to a level of 30,000LKR.

7.) The full wind power capacity of Sri Lanka is said to be 24GW. But CEB estimates that the grid cannot accommodate additional wind capacity more than 7% or 100MW. What is the reason for this?

Wind has a high degree of variation and wind is a non dispatchable technology. What you mean by dispatching is that the system operator can decide which power plants to use at which time to meet the demand so that total operating cost of the system is minimum. Wind and small hydro, because have no storage are non dispatchable. So for the moment you allow that you must have a back-up for the time when wind is not available. Also your system should be followed the variation from wind. So there is a limit to which any system can do that. So it has to do lot of studies and CEB has done some initial studies, but not very comprehensive yet. Initial studies that come up with the limitation which is more based on the network transmission level limitations rather than the system control limitations. So that study is to be redone again with a little bit more analytical effort. Although we have so much of potential it will not be possible to absorb all that in to a small power generating system like Sri Lanka. So each MW you have based on the wind have to have a MW standing by on the grid. You don’t need such a back up in other technologies. We have only about 40% extra at the moment. When the system goes more and more thermal, surplus capacity is also going down because Thermals are actually more reliable than renewable in terms of their energy output. Therefore I believe in the next 10 years, the maximum seems to be in the range of 200MW unless we have a connection with India and export it in to India. And when we export it in to India price is an issue. Because Indian electricity to the customer is more cheaper than Sri Lanka. Therefore Indian customers are not going to buy 20/= wind power from Sri Lanka.

8.) Government is carrying out feasibility studies on nuclear power. Do you think nuclear power suits a small country like Sri Lanka?

The studies that have been carried out are really pre-feasibility studies. Because a feasibility study is a more expensive study where you work on the site and it is a site related study where as a pre-feasibility study is a general study. So in terms of the suitability, Sri Lanka is a small grid that’s true. But there is no harm in being aware and analyse what our limitations are, what our potential is and what our strategies should be. If we look at a world without fossil fuel, 200 year from now what will be our source of energy? It definitely has to be nuclear and renewable. There is really no other way. The reason is that the nuclear energy can last much longer than fossil fuels. Therefore in preparation for the country to that reality, I welcome the feasibility study. But Sri Lankan grid or the economy or the people are still not ready to accept nuclear.

9.) The investment cost of solar panels on a per watt basis is at around five dollars even without taxes import duty. Other conventional technologies cost around one or two dollars per watt. Wouldn’t you think this is a huge barrier to the popularity of soar power in Sri Lanka?

Yes it is actually. Finally when you calculate the cost for a solar panel, there is no running cost. It totally depends on the initial cost. If you can reduce the $5 investment to $2, then the solar energy will be proportionally cheap. If an investor wants to invest solar power plant in Sri Lanka, he can’t get that $2. It is only there in the papers. So the price has to come down. Also we should not forget that Sri Lanka has a higher potential for solar power. But the interest rate is still very high for an investor. So if you take the financial model for calculating the cost of KWh for 20 years, you put $5 per watt, and you put an interest rate of 20% and an investor in Sri Lanka expects about 20% from his expenditure, the answer will be Rs. 107/= per KWh. Even now we are complaining about this average Rs. 13/= per KWh to customer to be too high. But if you can put the safe model $2 per watt, capital interest rate to be American rate which is about 8% and the return on investment expected by an American investor about 12% the answer you get is below Rs. 30/= per KWh. So those three critical parameters cause Sri Lanka’s solar power to be too expensive.

10.) Considering all critical areas like environmental, social and other issues, what is the best suit for Sri Lanka? Coal or Furnace Oil?

When you concern fuel alone for coal you get about 5/= per unit. For oil you get 10.50/= per unit. So the fuel cost per KWh for coal is half that of oil burning combined cycle plant. But we should not forget that coal power plant’s initial cost per KW is $1400, whereas for the combined cycle plant, it is about $1000. In terms of maintains, since Kerawalapitiya is using furnace oil, it’s maintains cost is very high. Kerawalapitiya and Norochcholai will have same maintenance cost. Norochcholai has environmental related maintenance. In fact Kerawalapitiya will be more polluting that Norochcholai where it comes to SO2. But Norochcholai will be more polluting than Kerawalapitya when it comes to the particulates. So, all in all Norochcholai will have a full environmental protection. But in Kerawalapitiya there is protection for SO2. But coal will be still the cheapest form of power generation compared with the anything accept large hydros. But in terms of long term investment large hydro is the cheapest. Then coal. Then mini hydro and then everything else.

When we come back to the pollution, Kerawalapitiya is using 1.8% S containing fuel. For coal it is 0.65%. Norochcholai will have a filtering process to bring it down to the 0.2%. Kerawalapitiya and Norochcholai both are 300MW. Assuming that both these two power plants are in operation, SO2 emission for Kerawalapitiya that will be 10 times of Norochcholai. So in terms of SO2 emission Norochcholai will be more efficient than all power plants in the system today. Including your stand by generator on your door step. But on particulates Norochcholai will be the most damaging plant compared with the others.

By 2020 we would be able to gain 1000MW from Norochcholai and another 1000MW from Sampoor and another 1000MW from Trinco. All of these are coal power plants. But from a policy point of view, too much of coal is not good enough. Because in case of something happen to our major supplier (Australia or Singapore) we will be in a big trouble.

Standard technology of Electrostatic Precipitation which will capture 99.2% of the particles of that will attempt to escape from the chimney. 0.8% will escape. Continuous monitoring in five different stations around the plant will be monitored these. International standards are also 99.2%

Moving ahead with PUCSL – An Interview which I have done with Prof. Ranjit Perera for the EESoc Newsletter

Prof. Perera, an engineering graduate from University of Moratuwa obtained his Dipl.-Ing and PhD (Dr.-Ing.) from University of Technology Aachen, Germany (RWTH Aachen). After working on a post doctoral research assignment at RWTH Aachen for three years he returned to Sri Lanka to work as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Moratuwa. He was appointed Professor of Electrical Engineering in 2004 and headed the Academic Department of Electrical Engineering for four years from April 2004 to March 2008. He is an award winning researcher having over 25 national and international publications to his credit.

Prof. Ranjit Perera, is the Director General/ CEO of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka. He has completed his first year in the regulatory Commission but has over 25 years of engineering /teaching experience in Electrical Engineering.

This is an interview with Director General of PUCSL

What are the main responsibilities of PUCSL?

PUCSL was established in 2002 to regulate very important utilities. There are three different areas have been identified; namely Water, Electricity and downstream Petroleum products. But according to the law, each of these industries has to be commissioned by a separate parliament act. That has happen only for electricity up to now. Although we are designated to regulate Water and Petroleum products, still we are not authorized to impose any rules. For electricity act that was passed in parliament recently has empowered us to regulate the electricity industry. With that, it is our duty to ensure continuous electricity supply throughout the country through a licensing process. That means, we should issue license to everybody who are acting in electricity generation, transmission and distribution. So there are around 150 licenses of that nature and some of them were issued by the ministry of Power and Energy earlier. There is a six month period of validity for that. At the end of these six months new license are to be obtained from the PUCSL. This period ends on 7^th of October. We are receiving applications from various people. And we have published our intention to grant license in the newspapers. Every Wednesday we are putting advertisements. Up to now we have advertised for 72 different licenses. CEB is in six licenses, one for generation and one for transmission and four for distribution. And LECO is getting another license. There are number of mini hydro plants and other renewable forms that have applied for license. In that category, we have published our intention to grant license for 72 up to now. But there are more applications coming. That is one of the main activities and in the license; we set conditions for the operation and while monitoring continuously. If in case of violation we have the legal power to take action against the license or in worst case scenario it is possible to terminate the license. In addition, price regulation is another responsibility of PUCSL. That means the electricity price and utility price are to be finalized by us. Aafter analyzing the details obtained from the industry regarding costs and capital values, final unit cost is set.

The process is somewhat novel to Sri Lanka. As you know the electricity price is a very sensitive issue. Electricity has become a political commodity and elections can be won or lost on electricity prices. Since it is a sensitive issue and the government is not prepared to revise prices frequently. And it is even our policy to avoid frequent price revisions. Last revise was in November 2008. So we don’t expect any changes till next year. We have various standards prepared in consultation of CEB and LECO to improve the quality of electricity supply. This process is still ongoing and these standards are to be put into practice. Of course, always in case of violation we can take actions. But these standards are gradually to be improved. Sometimes the failure rates are very low. As an example in developed countries you get an electricity failure once or twice a year. Where Sri Lanka you can get once an hour.

So we can’t jump from this low level to a very higher level from a very short time. We have to improve gradually. And voltage fluctuations are very common in Sri Lanka. In rural areas we get low voltages. Due to operational failures and other things, you get high voltages. Those can cause household equipment failure. High voltages give immediate effects and low voltages give long term effects. The life time of equipment is reduced in either case. So these are the issues where we have to bring improvements gradually. You can’t improve these in a very short time. Because low voltage issue is a very wide spread problem. You have to invest a lot of money and you have to put more transformers and do phase balancing and shorten the distribution lines and so on.

Supply electricity for all is one of the targets in the government. So they want to reach that within next eight years. Also 17% our households are without electricity now. There are plans drawn by CEB to electrify these within next year. So we review those plans and we are setting priorities on which areas should be electrified first and so on.

So up to now PUSCL is entirely about electricity?

Yes. Because as I mentioned earlier the other two areas designated to us are not under full authority of PUCSL. And because you asked that I’d like to say few thongs on our involvement in petroleum sector. The petroleum sector is not allocated to us as a separate industry. But there is a cabinet decision which has requested us to get involved in lubricant area. Also in the lubricant sector it is called the shadow regulation that means we advise the ministry of petroleum products and they implement our recommendations. So we make recommendations, they give the license. These are the two areas we are directly involved.

There seems to be a very big time lag to credit the accounts of electricity bills which affects the economic situation adversely. How will the PUCSL use its influence to solve this problem?

That is actually real situation in rural areas I guess. We are receiving a large amount of complains related to electricity sector. Some of them are addressing the problem pointed by you. People say they have to travel long distance to pay their electricity bill and sometimes you pay the bill today but you will be credited after a month or so. Actually the electricity you use on credit, you use today you pay in a month. So the customer should build up as a practice to pay the bill in time without much delay. So CEB is giving 2 months of time to do that. So if customer pays at the end of the two months both parties are in trouble. So the customer should learn and practice it to pay on a particular day in a month and that should be properly decided depending on the circumstances. On other hand the CEB has 4.5 million customers. You need a big net work to collect that money. So CEB is also trying to improve their shortcomings.

If we are not satisfied with the service provided what are the steps we can take?

If you have a problem with CEB or LECO the first thing is you have to communicate with them. Just speak to your relevant customer service. If you think that there is something not satisfied happening or if they don’t attend to you properly, then you can write to us. Now every day we are receiving around 10 complaints and most of them, we can solve in very short time. And the others are very complicated and we get time for that. And we have different affairs divisions. Few people are working there and we have separate set of inspectors there. And these inspectors are sent to sites and they look at the problem independently. Of course one of the biggest advantage customers have is when he or she complains to CEB, CEB is the culprit as well as the judge in that case. But when you come to the PUCSL it is different. We are independent.

What has been done to increase the accessibility of PUCSL service to consumers?

That is a different situation. Actually many people don’t know what is PUCSL. There are so many reports on the news papers and so on. We are making presentations to academic bodies and professional bodies. As an example I had the keynote address in IESL annual general meeting in Kandy. Although still the message has not gone to the public sector, we are receiving considerable amount of complaints over telephone. So you can’t say the knowledge is very small. People are aware of that but still we have a lot to do. So we will go ahead with the publicity campaigns.

Can access help through email or web?

Of course, there is a web page that is www.PUCSL.gov.lk. This web page is regularly updated. Also there was a big problem earlier when it comes to the tariff, how to calculate our electricity bill. So there is a program where you can calculate your electricity bill by feeding the data. This is a very popular item on our page.

What is the current status of the program that you have launched recently to improve the safety of internal electric installations within the government owned schools?

Actually, it is our responsibility to ensure the electricity safety throughout our island. Although it is a very useful product, it is equally dangerous. Unfortunately in our country we hear one death every month in average. So that is a very bad situation. In developed countries, you don’t hear such situations. So it is our responsibility to reduce this one. One of the steps that we have taken is improving our safety regulations. In addition to that, we thought we should pay attention to government buildings. We have noted that in government buildings such accidents are more. We have picked to implement this program in government schools. And every month we are visiting around ten schools all over the country and make inspections to find out what shortcoming are there. Of course we don’t have funds to rectify, but we guide the school staff and principals, OBAs and OGAs.

Is it monitored afterwards?

Yes. With our limited staff we try to do that.

Is it restricted only to schools?

Yes. There are 10000 schools in our country. This week we inspected three schools in Wellawaya. When you do that, two days are needed. Actually one of the reasons for doing this in schools, you can pass the importance of safety for the whole society. When we give that message to the teachers and students, they will send that message to their parents and villagers and for further distances. The other thing is lives of our schoolchildren are more precious. And if you cultivate these things in the school children they will take that message throughout their life. And later of course when the school situation is straightened out, we intend to shift to hospitals.

Are there any programs that have been launched to lower the consumer’s utility bills?

That is one of the main responsibilities of us, to provide affordable electricity to the consumers. Electricity is not just buying and selling. Electricity involves long term investments. If you put a power station, the life time will be 20 years or 100 years. So once you build a power station you can’t shut it down. Unfortunately, we have not taken the correct decision at correct time. Concerning about the coal power stations, that has been delayed 20 years due to social and political issues and only now we are getting our first coal power station which will be commenced on next year. But still we have expensive diesel power stations and gas turbine power stations. We can’t shut down them immediately. So the cost of electricity will go down slowly. But on the other hand the coal and fuel prices are going up. So the price reduction can’t be expected. After the completion of the proposed coal power plants in Norochcholai and Sampure average cost will be relatively low. And during that time we can probably retire the expensive gas turbines and diesel plants. Within the next few years we may experience cost reductions. But as I mentioned earlier there can be cost escalations due to coal and oil prices. Another fact is the efficiency of the system. As we know electricity losses of our country is around 15%. This is a very good situation.

In other countries when they put a power station they are 3000MW or 4000MW plants. These are so called mega power stations. There is no place in our country for plants like that, because, our annual increase in power demand is about 150MW. So if you build a 1000MW plant we have to wait a long time. That makes electricity more expensive compared to mega power plants.

What do you point about the Atomic Energy Authority and Nuclear power for Sri Lanka? Is it possible?

There were three barriers for nuclear power in past. One is specific to Sri Lanka and others are generally for the world. The special problem to Sri Lanka is our low base load. For a nuclear power plant the most economical size is about 600MW. Sri Lanka being a small system, there is no place for a single unit like that. So our biggest unit of Norochcholai will be 300MW. And so it is not suitable to put a 600MW plant in Sri Lanka till next 10 years. But definitely after 2020, assuming our economy is expanding, such plants are suitable for Sri Lanka. But if you want to put a nuclear plant in 2020 you have to start now. Construction period is 15 even in developed countries. Second is security situation which has now improved. The 3^rd is the aftermath of Chernobyl explosion. After the explosion of Chernobyl in 1985 most of the countries said that they are not going to construct nuclear plants again, including the leaders of nuclear energy (UK, Germany, USA) in modern world. Only few countries like Russia, Japan, France, Iran, South Africa and Pakistan never gave up the will to come up with nuclear based energy allowing them to have cheap electricity. In France, they are selling electricity to all the neighbor countries. In Japan, 40% of electricity is from nuclear. Nuclear is cheaper than coal. On top of that we don’t have coal. But we have thorium in the western cost of our county.

Chernobyl disaster has created a negative perception about demoniacal nuclear power over the years. Do you think we can overcome it?

Different countries use different mechanisms for meltdown process. None of them are perfect. So we have to overcome this. On top of that our people object anything new. We have been about discussing about coal power stations for many years. If we were to put a coal power station as planed earlier, the current situation would have been much better. But we delayed it for over 20 years. In engineering you have to take risks.

Does our country have fair enough education background about nuclear energy?

No. We don’t have. But we have intelligent engineers and even more intelligent engineering students. Definitely, though we don’t have a nuclear program in our university system, you can easily do MScs and PhDs in outside of the country. And also we can consult foreign expertise. Even for coal and big hydro projects we always depend on foreign experts. So that is not a barrier. But the barrier is many countries will help us to put a coal power station, but only a limited number of countries will help us to put a nuclear power station. That is also not a problem because Sri Lanka is a country who has no enemies. In our history after the independence we never had external enemies. Probably, Japan and India will help us. Only government has to take a policy decision and people should ready to accept it. As you mentioned, in our country, we have different type of democracy more than any other country, people can stop projects.

What are the other industries you consider as to be regulated by the PUCSL?

Actually, from the PUCSL act we are only designated to regulate three industries. But foreign donors are promoting other industries like port and toll roads to be regulated by somebody. And some people have even identified our organization for that. But there is long way to go. It is a very slow process. As I mentioned earlier, now we are empowered only for regulation of electricity by electricity act. But electricity act was discussed in our country for 12 years. Three separate acts were brought to the parliament; only succeeded in its third attempt, this march.

Wouldn’t you think the Telecommunication and Transportation should come to this shelter?

In our country there is a separate organization to regulate telecommunication. There are some political opinions that all these should come under one organization. But I think there’s no need for merge these two and same applies to the transportation.

Are there any financial assistance programs for the consumers launched by the PUCSL?

Actually, subsidies are decided by the government. We can of course advise the government to targeted subsidies. Other than advising we have no role in deciding them. But we will be implementing the decision taken by the government.

What are the Future plans of PUCSL?

We have started regulating electricity industry and within a year we want to bring some improvements to the industry. And we are hoping to give more emphasis on the project of raising awareness among school children. But we want to go to other designated two sectors as well.

Any message for the consumer sector?

Consumers have to understand that electricity is a very expensive commodity. We should pay for electricity. Pay the bills in time. Do not waste electricity .And we should not try to steal electricity. According to the last year counts there was a 50 million daily loss for CEB. So we can’t go ahead with this. People have to be aware of that, all parties; PUCSL, CEB and consumers should contribute to the current situation.