The CEB Engineers who had threatened to suspend work at the Norochcholai coal power plant yesterday, suspended the strike temporarily as the CEB had met some of their demands, CEB Engineers’ Union President Athula Wanniarachchi said.
The PUCSL had notified the CEB General Manager that it had approved the Least Cost Long Term Generation Expansion plan 2018-2037 after an extensive public consultation process on July 19, 2017.
It said the commission had requested the government policy on the fuel mix according to section 5 of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act no. 20 of 2009 from the Secretary of the Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy prior to arriving at the decision.
However, no response had been received by the Commission in this regard and they had approved the Least Cost Long Term Generation Expansion Plan 2018-2037 based on the Least Cost principals as per the section 43 (8) of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act.
He told the Daily News that the scheduled strike action was suspended as the CEB had accepted their plan. The two core demands made by the CEBEU was the granting of approval to the Least Cost Long Term Generation Expansion Plan (LCLTGEP) 2018-2037 and appointing ‘professionals with high integrity and an unblemished record to key posts in the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL)’.
“We have decided to temporarily suspend our strike action, but there are unclear areas that still needs to be addressed by the CEB management. They claim that what we have submitted is the plan for the previous year (Past plan) and that the conditions should be in accordance with the new government’s policy.
“We submitted the plan in 2017. So how could we have submitted a plan at that time based on policies that were declared in 2018? With regard to our second key demand of appointing a professional with high integrity as PUCSL Director General, the process has been initiated by the authorities, but it still needs to be implemented,” he said, adding that once these demands are all met, they would decide if the strike action would be called off or not.
He added that these issues would be discussed with the CEB authorities and a decision would be made. However, he said that for the moment, the CEBEU had taken the decision to suspend the proposed strike action.
Further, the Letter sent by the PUCSL Chairman to the CEB General Manager states that the Commission approved LCLTGEP 2018-2037 and CEB submitted base case plan, both do not fully comply with the energy mix of the new government policy. Hence, the Commission has directed the Transmission Licensee to resubmit the plan complying with the latest government policy.
The Commission has therefore, granted approval for the CEB base case plan subjected to the accommodation of already Cabinet approved “Government to government power plants” and the “latest Government Policy”.
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