Lakvijaya Power Plant

The Lakvijaya Power Plant, which is also known as the Norocholai Power Station after its location, is a 900 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station in the Puttalam District of the Northwestern Province in Sri Lanka. It is Sri Lanka's first coal power plant.

The first 300 megawatt unit was commissioned in in March 2011, with the second 600MW phase planned to be commissioned by 2013.

Background
The construction work for the 300 MW coal fired thermal power plant with infrastructure for a 900 MW power plant had started in 2006 amid heavy resistance from the Catholic community of the area. The Chinese government thorough the Exim Bank of China has provided US$455 million for the Lakvijaya plant. The delivery of the first shipment of 65,500 tonnes of coal at a cost of US$7 million from Indonesia was expected in the first week of November 2010.

Accidents and shutdowns
The first phase of the plant has been beset with problems and shutdowns including:


 * In October 2010, a fire broke out at the plant. According to Ceylon Electricity Board officials, the fire erupted due to the clogging of a chimney that emits waste from the combustion of coal. The fire will not interrupt construction. The Ministry of Power and Energy commented that damages to the facility would be borne by the constructors, and not the government or the developers.


 * On July 22, 2012 the power station ceased operations due to a leak in one of the thousands of tubes carrying water between the boiler. The country was put into controlled regional power outages to cope with the missing generation.


 * On August 8, 2012 a tripping of the powerline from Lakvijaya caused the power station to cease operations.


 * On January 29, 2013 the power station exceeded its designed levels of 300MW, causing a complete shutdown. The plant was reactivated a day later.

Call for inquiry on plant tender
The National Electricity Consumers Movement, unions and opposition political parties have called for a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to investigate into the recurrent breakdowns with the first phase of the Norochcholai coal power plant. It was reported that since the plant was commissioned in December 2011 the plant, which was built by China Machinery and Engineering Corporation (CMEC) has experienced more than 20 breakdowns. As a result the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has incurred significant financial loss.

The General Secretary of the Lanka Electricity Board Employees’ Union, Ranjan Jayalal, said that some CEB "officials went to China with their families thanks to technical evaluations and other similar operations. It is clear that they have not done their job. We urge the government to start an inquiry. As much as the Chinese company is responsible for the breakdowns in the Norochcholai coal power plant, those officials too should take the blame for the problem.”

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