Nisadas

Sunshine over the jungle by Walter Saporiti

Not too long after my post on LED lighting, it seems that Sri Lanka has commissioned its first solar power plant in the week ending 13 August 2011.

The state media has publicized the commissioning of the 500kw plant, as has LankaBusinessOnline.

While the economics may still be debatable, it’s good to see that Sri Lanka is moving in the direction of independence from oil-based power generation.

At a presentation during the recent CIMA Leadership Conference, the Minister for Power & Energy talked about other things in the pipeline – including Net Metering.

I first read about Net Metering in Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded. In the book, Friedman discussed an energy-net, much like the Internet.

In this scenario, homes can have their own solar panels and generate electricity to be fed to the national grid. As a result, ho me consumers can enjoy a reduction in their usage at the end of the month, which would be the net of their actual usage and units fed to the grid. A great way to reduce electricity bills, methinks.

Friedman also discussed “Petropolitics” (or the power that comes from being an oil-producing nation) and how turning to alternative power sources was also a means of creating national power.

In this background, it’s heartening to note that Sri Lanka is making some progress. Even more so, since we have the advantage of being smaller and having a monopoly situation with electrification – which could allow us to adopt the key strategies towards a greener nation faster than other countries.

The Youtube video embedded below is a news clip (in Sinhalese) of the ceremony marking the commissioning of the plant. Unfortunately, the images show a cloudy day in Hambantota, where the plant is situated. Given how much sunlight they are supposed to get in Hambantota, that’s quite ironic.

Nevertheless, I hope this works out well and that we are able to see more alternative energy generation in action in Sri Lanka.