Sri Lanka’s power regulator said 1 hour and 45 minutes of scheduled power cuts were approved to save water from February 18 as fuel shortages expanded power generation deficit.
“We have realized that we do not have enough oil to run our generators, therefore one more than 400 MegaWatts generators are out of order,” Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka Chairman Janaka Ratnayake said.
“Therefore we have no choice but to implement scheduled load shedding from today starting from 230 pm”.
“On top of that there is a requirement to reduce generation from hydro, which is now at 10GWh a day to 7.5GWh.”
Power will be cut in one hour blocks from 1430 hours to 1830 hours and in 45 minute blocks from 1830 to 2230pm.
Earlier in the week PUCSL two days ago denied permission for scheduled power cuts.
The CEB was asked to disconnect power starting from bulk customers with their own generators to reduce hydro generation to 5 GigaWatt hours a day but did not specify whom to cut next.
Power utility officials however say they have no mandate to disconnect customers with generators and force them to generate power and the regulators should send a specific directive.
Even then they may be subject to lawsuits, an industry official said.
The PUCSL said its decision was made on several assumptions.
“But we have come to a point where we have realized that we do not have enough oil to run our generators,” Ratnayake said.
Download power cut schedule: Power-Interuption-Schedule-Feb18
Sri Lanka could face up to four hour power cuts in March and April, disruptions to drinking water in Colombo and sweeping outages in the southern grid, if the power cuts were not allowed, industry officials have said.