Aug. 22, 2011 - Dr. Heather Johnstone - powerengineeringint.com

Sri Lanka’s power minister Patali Champika Ranawaka has said that the country is ahead of schedule in its target of supplying electricity to every household by the end of 2012. Ranawaka said electricity is already provided to 92 percent of households.

He said: “Our attention now is to those whom the national grid cannot provide power including the live in hilly regions, islands and isolated villages. The power solution for them is renewable energy such as wind and solar power.”

The Ministry of Power and Energy has taken steps to provide solar panels at subsidised prices for people who cannot get power connections from the national grid.

The generation capacity of mini-hydropower plants will be increased from the present 175 MW; wind power is to be increased from 30 MW to 90 MW by 2020, and electricity generated from bio-gas is due to be increased from the present 11.2 MW to 150 MW by 2020.

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