Power Failure

The recent power failure discussion is an absolute misdirection by CEB Engineers. A sub-station at Panadura infiltrated by Monkeys can cause a trip. However, this failure cannot affect the trip at the Norocholai Power plant. It is of the opinion that the protection schemes have not been coordinated up and downstream. The power station trip may be for another failure as the power station trips frequently. I recommended the installation of a power system stabilizer some years ago. Wonder whether it has been done? This power station is a problem as it was installed during the Mahinda Rajapaksa period with kickbacks. If you all remember the failure at Biyagama, the Chief Engineer’s suggestion before failure was ignored and they tried to blame the engineer. I wrote an analysis report on this failure. The failure could have been analyzed by their own engineers; however, the Rajapaksa regime wanted a German engineer to come and tell them that the failure was due to the presence of excessive combustible gases in the tap changer compartment. The issue here is that CEB did not carry out DGA tests yearly on Primary and grid substation HV & EHV transformers. The substation enclosure shall be fenced with a seven feet metal fence wire as shown in the picture. This is for both safety and protection from unauthorized entry.

During Rajapaksa time everything is decided by the Minister. The reason is for kickbacks. Engineers have no say. Even for a substation, this is the way fencing should be done.

Therefore, the prime cause of the country’s power supply failure is due to something else.

The protection coordination shall be studied and discriminated correctly for the island power supply.

How could a monkey trip cause failure in Kandy or Jaffna?

Load throw-off tests should be done at Norocholai and other thermal power plants.

It is of the opinion that there are too many managers with CEB.