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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%