Austrian based company, 365 Future Energy, Brisbane is looking at reinvesting around USD 80 million to put up Sri Lanka’s first solar energy park with a back up storage facility in Mattala Hambantota.
CEO & Director Isuru Yapa speaking to ‘Daily News Business’ from Australia said that they are just completing a mega USD 400 million solar project with a backup storage facility in Brisbane to generate 300 MW of power.
CEO & Director Isuru Yapa and
Managing Director Youjin Kim
“This is jointly funded by Australian, South Korean and Sri Lanka investors. The project is now in its halfway stage and will be completed by year end.”
He said that in Australia there are several ways to sell revenue energy with firs being under the power purchase agreement (PPA) which pays them around half a Australian dollar.
“Under the second scheme we can store and sell our power to private energy operators and under this scheme we can get more than double the amount under the PPA per unit price.” He also said that Australia has a 4,000KM plus power line that runs across the country connecting Queensland with Perth and options are there to supply power to this as well.
Yapa said that they entered the Sri Lanka Solar energy supply market in 2019 and invested nearly Rs 200 million for a 250 acre land in Mattala and other logistics.
“We also paid relevant fees to gain approvals from Sustainable Energy Authority amounting nearly Rs. 5 million. “In addition we also spent around Rs. 50 million to carry out two feasibility studies on the project viability with South Korean Hyundai and Indian Tata Company. However, each time the project was to be approved, Ministers changed and it was postponed.”
Even after several years the investment consortium of Australian, Sri Lanka and South Korean partners are keen to infuse fresh capital amounting to nearly USD 80 million to kick start this project which will add 50Mv to the local national grid.
“We have now met with senior authorities from the Ministry of Power and Energy and other sector authorities to restart this project. 365 Future Energy, also has diversified businesses in many parts of the world and currently we have sand and aggregate quarries in operation in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka.
Shirajiv Sirimane