Renewable energy sources set to power Lanka by 2030

Sri Lanka will reach 80% self sufficiency in electricity by 2027 Director General of Public Utilities Commission Damitha Kumarasinghe said.

He was speaking at the third edition of the Renewable Energy Growth Forum organized by Informa Markets in India a leading B2B exhibitions organizer at Taj Samudra. The Print Media sponsor was ‘Daily News’.

Kumarasinghe said that the vision of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was to be solely dependent on local renewable energy sources to power Sri Lanka by 2030 and they are working towards this goal. Currently Sri Lankan alterative power generation is at around 40%.

He said that world has suddenly expressed a keen interest towards solar power generation with Qatar, India, US and Australia leading the way with huge investments in last five weeks. He said that Qatar has invested USD 464 million to build its first solar power plant to generate 800-megawatt of alternative energy.

Warren Buffett is betting on solar power, with one of Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.B) companies behind a project to build the largest solar power plant in the U.S.

State of Victoria in Austria has also taken decision to have 95% of their homes powered by solar energy in 5 years while India has also invested on a huge floating Solar Park.

“Sri Lanka too has taken a leaf from this global shift towards Solar and is egging on the private sector to invest in this segment. He said that some of the new changing world trends with regard to power consumption ‘load curve’ too are changing and in Sri Lanka too soon the peak ‘night time’ demand will shift to ‘Day time’. He predicted that this curve change will happen in 2027 in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile Vinod K Jacob, Acting High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka said that India has offered US$ 100 million concessional financing for undertaking solar projects in Sri Lanka. “The local private sector should exploit this.”

“Sustainable development, for us, is not a compulsion or an option, but our passion. For India, going green is not a new motto. It has always been part of our very existence.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes keen interest in renewable and talked about the need for climate action, long before the world had realized the impact of climate change. We can now see the results.

India is all set to cross the 100 GW renewable energy capacity mark in 2020 and can make rapid strides towards the ambitious 175 GW clean energy target by 2022.

“India, is currently building the largest solar park in the world. US$3.1 billion has been proposed in the recent Budget for power and renewable energy sector in 2020-21.