Sri Lanka's Norochcholai coal power plant out of operation

Trade union sources of Sri Lanka Electricity Board say that the newly built Lak Wijaya coal plant at Norachcholai remains out of operation owing to technical problems.

However, these technical problems also remain unspecified, according to trade unions.
A move by the CEB Board of Directors to hand over the management of the Lak Wijaya Power Plant at Norachcholai to a Chinese Company for six months, at a staggering fee of USD three million, was turned down last month by the Power and Energy Ministry.

The CEB which is incurring heavy losses due to purchasing of electricity at higher rates from private sector to cope with the demand has already asked for a tariff hike.

The coal power plant now defunct was built by China Machinery Engineering Corporation. It is operated by Sri Lanka Electricity Board since July. The plant was officially handed over to the Sri Lanka Electricity Board since September.

280 employees of Sri Lanka Electricity Board have been trained to manage the coal power plant. Of them, around 100 including 80 engineers were trained in China.