{"id":98529,"date":"2020-02-01T15:53:56","date_gmt":"2020-02-01T22:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98529"},"modified":"2020-02-01T16:03:26","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T23:03:26","slug":"the-power-game-small-hydro-and-wind-power-to-our-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/01\/the-power-game-small-hydro-and-wind-power-to-our-rescue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power Game: Small Hydro and Wind Power to our rescue."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

While renewable energy should be the aim in power generation, it\nhas so happened that we are currently walking in the opposite direction. We are\nignoring the resources that Mother Nature has provided for us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news item: Small Hydro Power Developers Association calls on\nthe President for protection\u201d(FT:29\/1\/20) \ntells\nme of the negative orientation that authorities have had towards generating\npower from renewable sources in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My interest in small hydro power plants comes from what I have\nseen walking through many small scale hydro power projects on my incessant\nirrigation inspections in the Districts of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya. It is\nactually a small masonry structure diverting water to turn a small generator.  In a few hundred feet the water having produced electricity  gets back to the main stream. Not a drop is lost. Mother Nature\nhas provided this resource for us and it is sad that we do not realize it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An uncle of mine owned such a hydropower plant on the road from\nGampola to Ramboda and I have had the occasion to walk every inch of it. It\nprovided power to run his tea factory and bungalow. Unfortunately the\nElectricity Board talked him to abandon it and obtain power from them. He\ndiscussed this with me once and I requested him instead to further develop the\nhydro power plant. The Electricity Board won the day and later my uncle\nregretted when the Electricity Board jacked up their prices. Earlier he was\ngetting power totally free of charge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My uncle is no more and that section of the hydro plant is somehow\nin foreign custody now and for the past many years it is being developed to\nprovide more power and eventually to sell the power to our grid and make a fat\nprofit which will get shunted in dollars from our foreign reserves to Germany.\nSad to say it is a system where our water is turned into dollars and fritted\naway from our foreign exchange reserves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am told that in the Yahapalana Government days no approvals were\ngranted for small hydro power projects. I hope the details I have given above\nwill prove to anyone that we have gone in the wrong direction. It is up to us\nto get on the correct path to find the power that Mother Nature has provided\nfor us totally free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I recently I went through\nthe  Kotmale dam and my mind went through the damage that has been done to\nthe Kotmale Valley, a valley full of some one lakh  people, well developed\nhomegardens, in production of paddy, kitul treacle, pepper, cardamoms and endless\nfruit because it was a developed area. Now it is all denuded to all to provide\n201Megawatts of power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my book:Wind Power for\nSri Lanka\u2019s Energy Requirements(Godages:2019)  I have shown how the\n201MW now turned out by the Kotmale dam could have been produced by around 50\nwind turbines. Today there are wind turbines that turn 5 MW Power. When the\nKotmale Dam was built there were wind turbines that produced 3 MW power. If\nonly some seventy wind turbines had been sited in the Estates in the Kotmale\nValley itself, the people in Kotmale Valley would have been saved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is unfortunate that we have totally ignored the power sources\nthat Mother Nature has provided for us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 A part of the problem is\nthat Sri Lanka gave up National Planning in 1977. We do not have a Planning\nCommission that comprises patriotic thinking professionals to guide our\ndevelopment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A case in point is what is happening today in the Kitulgala Valley\nwhere  a dam is being built across the\nKitulgala River(later Kelani River) to produce 35 MW of power. The water is\ntaken in an underground tunnel and depriving water to   13 of the 18 rapids which is today a Tourist attraction.  Untold damage is done to a three mile section where a\ntunnel is being constructed. Homes and land are being damaged. This 35MW of power can easily\nbe produced by less than ten wind turbines at a fraction of the cost of $ 85\nmillion that is being spent all obtained on a foreign loan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small Scale Hydro Power\ndeserves immediate thinking and I urge  anyone in authority to read my\nbook: Wind Power for Sri Lanka\u2019s Energy Requirements.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This paper commenced with Hydro\nPower and ends with Wind Power. Both Water and Wind are resources that\nMother Nature has provided and it  upto us to harness them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me conclude with stating\nthat small scale hydro power plants and wind turbines can easily be constructed\nwithin  a year or two to provide all the power we require. We will see the\nDS Senanayake Development days in action at Gal Oya in the Fifties and the Land\nDevelopment and Irrigation Department scenario in the Forties and Fifties in\naction once again. We can save the millions we spend today on importing oil and\ncoal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the message in my book:\nWind Power for Sri Lanka\u2019s Energy Requirements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

May I request our new\nGovernment  of President Gotabhaya and Prime Minister Mahinda to kindly\nconsider my suggestions.  I am certain of their ability to do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne, former GA\nMatara,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29\/01.2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Garvin Karunaratne While renewable energy should be the aim in power generation, it has so happened that we are currently walking in the opposite direction. We are ignoring the resources that Mother Nature has provided for us. The news item: Small Hydro Power Developers Association calls on the President for protection\u201d(FT:29\/1\/20)  tells me of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98529","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=98529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}