{"id":157745,"date":"2026-08-09T15:35:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=157745"},"modified":"2026-08-09T15:35:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:35:44","slug":"kerawalapitiya-colombo-port-underground-electricity-cable-project-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/08\/09\/kerawalapitiya-colombo-port-underground-electricity-cable-project-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerawalapitiya\u2013Colombo Port Underground Electricity Cable Project Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Dr. Sarath Obeysekera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Port City Must Be Engineered for the Future\u2014not Repaired After the Future Arrives<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The commencement of the second underground high-voltage transmission cable between Kerawalapitiya and Colombo Port is undoubtedly an important national achievement. The approximately 16-kilometre, 220 kV cable will strengthen the reliability and capacity of the electricity supply to Greater Colombo, including the rapidly developing Colombo Port City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this project also raises a much larger and more uncomfortable question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why do we so often construct the visible symbols of development first and begin thinking about the essential infrastructure only afterwards?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A modern city is not created merely by reclaiming land, erecting towers, constructing hotels and selling expensive plots. Those are the parts photographed for investment brochures. The real city\u2014the city that determines whether people and businesses can function\u2014lies mostly underground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It consists of electricity cables, substations, fibre-optic networks, drinking-water mains, stormwater drains, sewerage systems, chilled-water pipelines, waste-collection tunnels, utility corridors and emergency services. If these systems are not predicted and installed at the beginning, tomorrow\u2019s city will repeatedly be excavated to correct yesterday\u2019s lack of imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Kerawalapitiya cable is therefore more than a power project. It should become a national lesson in <strong>engineering foresight<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A city must be conceived as a living organism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Colombo Port City is expected to become a financial, commercial, residential, tourism and technology centre. If that ambition succeeds, its demand for electricity, cooling, water, transport, data services and waste treatment will multiply rapidly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every apartment, office tower, hospital, hotel, shopping complex, convention centre, data centre and electric-vehicle charging station will consume energy. Every person entering the city will generate wastewater and solid waste. Every paved surface will increase stormwater runoff. Every glass tower will require cooling in Colombo\u2019s tropical climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are not secondary matters to be considered when buildings are already occupied. They are the circulatory, respiratory and digestive systems of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A human body cannot be designed by constructing the skeleton first and deciding later where to place the heart, lungs and blood vessels. Yet that is effectively what happens when urban developments are launched without simultaneously securing their long-term power, water, sewerage and waste-management systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Port City master plan should therefore have been based not merely on the land available today, but on several future scenarios:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The city at 25 per cent occupancy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The city at 50 per cent occupancy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The city operating at full planned capacity.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The city accommodating technologies and industries that do not yet exist.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The city surviving a prolonged power failure, drought, flood, cyberattack or interruption of mainland services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Good infrastructure meets present demand. <strong>Great infrastructure anticipates demand that has not yet appeared.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Lessons from highways that became runways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>During the Cold War, engineers in countries such as Germany designed selected highway sections so that they could be rapidly converted into emergency airfields if conventional military airbases were destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These were not ordinary roads accidentally suitable for aircraft. Selected stretches were deliberately made long, straight and strong. The central reservation was concreted, while guardrails were installed using quick-release arrangements. Road signs and other obstructions could be removed rapidly. Nearby areas were provided for aircraft servicing, communications, fuel and mobile control facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Germany\u2019s official military history records that typical emergency landing sections were approximately 1,500 to 3,500 metres long. Their median barriers could be dismantled quickly, allowing the two carriageways to become one broad operating surface. Military transport aircraft and fighter aircraft subsequently demonstrated the concept during exercises. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bundeswehr.de\/en\/autobahn-notlandeplaetze-waehrend-des-kalten-krieges-5630090\">Bundeswehr<\/a>\u2060<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is engineering foresight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The highway performed its everyday civilian function, but hidden within its design was another capability that could be activated during a national emergency. The engineers did not wait for an airbase to be destroyed before asking whether an aircraft could land on a road. They embedded tomorrow\u2019s answer in yesterday\u2019s concrete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arthur C. Clarke imagined satellites, global communications and technologies decades before they became part of ordinary life. Engineers must exercise the same disciplined imagination\u2014not by indulging in science fiction, but by asking what tomorrow may demand from the infrastructure being built today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most importantly, those highway-runway concepts were developed without artificial intelligence. They came from human imagination, strategic thinking and the willingness to consider events beyond the immediate budget cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, with digital modelling, sensors, artificial intelligence and powerful forecasting tools, we have fewer excuses for failing to anticipate the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Port City needs an energy ecosystem\u2014not merely a cable<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The new Kerawalapitiya\u2013Port underground cable will provide essential additional transmission capacity and redundancy. According to the Ceylon Electricity Board, the project will strengthen supply reliability, reduce transmission losses and support the delivery of renewable electricity to Colombo. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ceb.lk\/project-detail\/35\/en\">CEB<\/a>\u2060<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, supplying electricity is only one part of the challenge. Port City should be designed as an intelligent energy ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It should include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Multiple and independent power-feeding arrangements, so that failure at one point does not paralyse the entire city.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Space reserved for future substations and transformers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Smart grids capable of balancing demand among buildings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rooftop and fa\u00e7ade-integrated solar generation wherever technically practical.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Battery-energy storage for essential services.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>District cooling, which can be more efficient than thousands of individual air-conditioning units.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Separate emergency networks for hospitals, data centres, financial services, communications and public safety.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Charging infrastructure for electric cars, buses, service vehicles and possibly harbour craft.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Digital monitoring of energy consumption, equipment condition and underground cable temperature.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The objective should not be simply to prevent the lights from going out. It should be to create one of South Asia\u2019s most resilient, efficient and investable urban power systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>International banks, technology companies and data operators will not choose Port City because its buildings look attractive from the sea. They will ask whether electricity is reliable, whether there is redundancy, whether data connections are secure and whether essential operations can continue during an emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Infrastructure reliability is therefore not merely an engineering matter. <strong>It is an investment incentive.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sewage is not waste\u2014it is a resource<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A futuristic city should never discharge untreated sewage into the sea. Nor should it use expensive treated drinking water for landscaping, road washing, flushing toilets and construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Port City requires an integrated sewerage and wastewater-reclamation system designed for its ultimate population\u2014not merely its present construction workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wastewater should be collected, treated to an appropriately high standard and reused for non-potable purposes such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Irrigation and landscaping.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Toilet flushing.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Road and pavement cleaning.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cooling systems.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Construction activities.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Firefighting reserves, where regulations permit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Organic matter in sewage can also produce biogas through anaerobic digestion. Nutrients may be recovered, while treated sludge can be processed safely instead of being treated as an embarrassing substance to be transported somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The old urban model was linear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Take water \u2192 use it once \u2192 contaminate it \u2192 discharge it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The future model must be circular:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Take water \u2192 use it \u2192 treat it \u2192 recover energy and nutrients \u2192 use the water again.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a climate-vulnerable island, releasing reusable water into the ocean while consuming more treated freshwater is not development. It is a failure of systems thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Garbage should not leave Port City in the same form in which it is produced<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A high-value city cannot depend on fleets of leaking garbage trucks carrying mixed waste through Colombo every night. Waste must be separated where it is generated\u2014within homes, offices, hotels, restaurants and commercial buildings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Port City should establish mandatory streams for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Food and other organic waste.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Paper and cardboard.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Plastics.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Glass.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Metals.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Electronic waste.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hazardous and clinical waste.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Residual material that cannot presently be recovered.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Organic waste can be converted into compost, biogas or other useful products. Metals, glass, paper and selected plastics can return to industrial supply chains. Construction materials should be recovered during renovations and demolition. Digital tracking can identify how much waste every major building produces and how much is recycled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A modern system could eventually employ sealed collection points, compactors or even underground pneumatic conveyance, reducing odour, pests, traffic and human exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The success of the city should be measured not only by the value of property sold, but also by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Electricity consumed per square metre.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Water reused per person.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Waste diverted from landfill.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Carbon emissions per building.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Renewable energy generated locally.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Number and duration of service interruptions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>What is not measured will soon be forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Build one underground city before completing the city above it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The most important physical requirement may be a coordinated underground utility corridor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of allowing separate agencies to excavate the same roads repeatedly, major power cables, telecommunications, water, reclaimed water, cooling and other compatible services should be placed in planned, accessible corridors, with strict separation wherever safety requires it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adequate spare ducts must be installed for technologies that may appear 20 or 30 years from now. Access chambers, isolation points and digital mapping should permit maintenance without closing major roads or disturbing completed landscaping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sensors could create a digital nervous system beneath the streets, continuously detecting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Water leakage.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gas accumulation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cable overheating.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unusual electricity demand.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sewer blockages.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ground movement.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Saline-water intrusion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Flooding inside utility chambers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This underground city may never appear in a tourist photograph. Nevertheless, it will determine whether the visible city succeeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cheapest time to install spare capacity is before roads, parks and towers cover the ground. A spare underground duct laid today may cost relatively little. Digging up a functioning international financial district ten years later could cost hundreds of times more while damaging traffic, businesses and the country\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Every major infrastructure project should have a second purpose\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The highway-runway example offers a principle that Sri Lanka can apply far beyond Port City:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Every major infrastructure asset should be examined for additional future functions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could a stormwater reservoir also become a water source for firefighting?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could a wastewater plant generate energy and reclaimed water?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could solar-covered parking structures produce electricity while protecting vehicles?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could battery banks stabilise the grid during normal operation and supply emergency services during a blackout?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could landscaped wetlands provide recreation while controlling floods and improving water quality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could Port City\u2019s marine structures support environmental monitoring, emergency response and controlled water transport?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Could buildings be designed today so that future floors can be converted from offices to residences, laboratories or medical facilities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not overdesign. It is intelligent design. The purpose is not to predict one perfect future. It is to preserve the flexibility to respond to several possible futures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">From property development to national laboratory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Port City should become Sri Lanka\u2019s laboratory for twenty-first-century urban engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It can demonstrate how energy, water, sewage, waste, buildings, transportation and digital systems interact as one integrated organism. Technologies proven there can later be adapted for Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Jaffna, Trincomalee and other urban centres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The project should therefore have an independent multidisciplinary Future Infrastructure Council comprising power engineers, civil engineers, environmental specialists, architects, economists, port professionals, information-technology experts, disaster-management specialists and experienced international project managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Its responsibility should be to ask continuously:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What will this city require in 2035, 2050 and 2075\u2014and what must we install today before it becomes prohibitively expensive?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Political administrations operate within election cycles. Investors examine financial returns. Contractors concentrate on their packages. But someone must defend the interests of citizens who have not yet been born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is one of the noblest responsibilities of engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The real test of civilisation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Kerawalapitiya\u2013Colombo Port underground cable is welcome and necessary. The project consists of nearly 16 kilometres of 220 kV underground transmission infrastructure intended to meet growing Greater Colombo demand, including that of Port City. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aiib.org\/en\/projects\/details\/2025\/approved\/Sri-Lanka-Kerawalapitiya-Port-2nd-Transmission-Line-Project.html\">Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank<\/a>\u2060<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But let it become the beginning of a larger transformation in our thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A cable should not merely carry electricity. It should carry a warning from the future:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Do not build cities that your children must later dismantle in order to make them function.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The greatness of Port City will not be measured by the height of its tallest tower, the price of its most expensive apartment or the brilliance of its nighttime skyline. Its greatness will be measured by whether it can keep operating during a crisis; whether it converts waste into resources; whether it protects the ocean; whether it conserves water; and whether its hidden infrastructure remains adequate for generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyone can build for what is already visible. The true engineer builds for what is still invisible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The German engineers who placed quickly removable barriers along selected highways were not merely constructing roads. They were embedding an alternative future inside ordinary infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka must do the same at Port City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We must not wait for artificial intelligence to tell us what common sense, experience and engineering imagination should already have revealed: the future does not suddenly arrive\u2014it grows silently inside the decisions we make today.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Dr. Sarath Obeysekera<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regards<br><br>Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Sarath Obeysekera Port City Must Be Engineered for the Future\u2014not Repaired After the Future Arrives The commencement of the second underground high-voltage transmission cable between Kerawalapitiya and Colombo Port is undoubtedly an important national achievement. The approximately 16-kilometre, 220 kV cable will strengthen the reliability and capacity of the electricity supply to Greater Colombo, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sarath-obeysekera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157746,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157745\/revisions\/157746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}