Sri Lankan wind energy

industry
Why we should do it?
Mahinsasa Narayana

The potential of Renewable Energies

Wind Power's Beginnings

A 19th-century American
knock-of of the Persian
panemone that probably
made a wonderful clothes
dryer.

Power Sailing Ships

 Small wind turbines

Electricity by wind energy

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Energy: Foreign or Local?

Large wind turbines

Plant

Energy
source

Coal power

Foreign/Local

Foreign

Wind power

Foreign/Local

Local (free)

COE
Hambantota pilot wind farm

Cannulised foreign cost

Eannual energy generation

Cost of Foreign Energy= US$/kWh

Required Energy

Cost of wind energy in Sri Lanka (Large scale wind

power generations)

Cost of energy depends on the capital cost of the plant,

installation cost, commissioning cost, operation cost and
maintenance cost.

Cost of wind energy is highly site-specific as wind potential

depends on the location.

In this study, three locations are selected in Hambantota, Kalpitiya

and Ambewela regions and the cost of wind energy generation is
calculated based on the predicted wind potential of each location.

Capacity of 3MW wind system (NEG MICON 600kW, 5 units) was

installed in Hambantota region as a pilot plant. The total project
cost was around US$ 3 million. Therefore, to determine the cost of
wind energy at the each selected locations in Sri Lanka,
concerning the experience of the Hambantota pilot wind plant,
capital cost and installation cost of one 600kW wind turbine is
taken as US$600000.

Source: M Narayana; Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume XII No. 1, March 2008

WRAM Wind resources map

for Sri Lanka

Kalpitiya

Ambewela

Hambantot 7
a

Cost of wind energy in each locations in Sri Lanka

Region

Location

Cost of wind energy

060 08.6

810 09.47

0.083US$/kWh

Hambantota (Existing 060 08.4

CEB wind turbine site)

810 6.6

0.15US$/kWh

Kalpitiya

080 11.0

790 42.5

0.0455US$/kWh

Ambewela

060 53.6

800 46.4

0.022US$/kWh

Hambantota

According to this study, cost of wind energy in Kalpitiya and Ambewela is more
competitive than Hambantota. As well as Hambantota some other locations
are better than the existing CEB wind turbine site. As this is only a comparison
study, it is not considered about possibility of land acquisition. Therefore,
detail micro-sitting should be done by considering land acquisition and grid &
road accessibility for selecting wind sites.

Source: M Narayana; Energy for Sustainable Development, Volume XII No. 1, March 2008

Capital costs and payback periods

Turbine size

W
or
ld

Building-mounted
micro (2.5kW)
Micro (6kW)

Capital cost
per turbine

sc

10,000

en
ar
20 - 28,000
io

Feed-in-Tariff
generation
rate (current,
/kWh)

Simple
payback
period

0.27

May not payback

within lifetime

0.27

May not payback

within lifetime

Small (20 - 50kW)

50,000 - 125,000

0.24

8 - 15 years

Medium (100kW 850kW)

250,000 to 1.8
million

0.09 - 0.19

7 - 9 years

Large (1MW 2.5MW)

2 million - 3.3
million

0.05 - 0.09

less than 1 year - 5

years

10Rs.-18Rs.

The estimated cost of

energy for wind energy is
7.70 Rs./kWh and the
average cost of energy in Sri
Lanka is 13.40Rs./kWh.
Source: "Generation Performance in Sri Lanka
2012 (First Half) " Public Utilities Commission of
Sri Lanka and
http://www.powersrilanka.com/visitors.html,"
2013.

Tier 1

Wind

Tier 1

Tier 1

22.05 8.48

4.82

Wind-Local 22.60 8.69

4.94

Electricity Production Cost

11

Installation cost

The typical small system costs are $3,000 - $5,000 per kW

capacity installed[1].
The rooftop turbine market is still in the early stages of
development, but manufacturers estimate that once mass
production starts, an average 1-1.5 kW model will cost
around $ 1,500 per kW capacity installed[2].
The cost of large, megawatt scale, wind turbines is today
about $1200 per kW capacity. Most commercial wind
turbine are in
the range of 2 MW
The annual maintenance costs are between 1.5% and 3% of
the turbine cost but increase with time as the turbines get
older[3].

Reference:
[1] http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_wind_smallwind.htm
[2] BWEA Small Wind Turbine FAQ. 2009 [cited; Available from: http://www.bwea.com/small/faq.html#cost.
[3] 2009 [cited August 18, 2009]; Available from:
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/05-06/constr_village/renowable_wind_turbine.htm
12

Power generation system

Prime (firm) power generations are the large
power plants and commissioning according to the
generation expansion plan in the country.
Embedded power generations are fed into the
400V or 33kV network.

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Absorptive capacity for embedded generation in Sri Lanka

Source: Siemens Power Technologies

International Ltd, Technical Assessment of the
Generation Absorption Capacity of the Sri
Lanka Power System Final Report, RERED

Necessary reinforcements should be done to the

network to eliminate the overload and voltage
conflicts under normal and abnormal system
operation

In these studies, it was assumed that the output of all

CEB generation was reduced as the output of embedded
generation was increased
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 Installed Wind power is 2.5% of installed capacity in Sri

Lanka
Total Installed embedded generation is 10% of installed
capacity
Source: Statistical Digest 2013, CEB

Cost based on Indian context

Installing a 10-kW wind generator

Source: WIND LETTER THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE AMERICAN WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION,
Volume 25 Issue No. 1 January, 2006

Local and Foreign contributions

to small wind turbine installation
60m
tower

80m
tower

100m
tower

Local (Foundation, Tower,

installation and
commissioning)

41%

42% 44%

Foreign (wind turbine and

inverter)

59%

58% 56%

Grid connected small wind

turbines

Grid connected small wind

turbines are becoming
popular in urban areas

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t
Ne

g
n
i
r
te
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Small Wind turbines operating

principles
Rotor

DC bus

PMG

AC-DC

Main grid
or
Local grid

DC-DC

DC-AC

Currant

Input signals Voltage

for controller

Duty cycle

Schematic of small wind power system

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Monthly mean wind speed, energy production

and grid purchases for selected sites (Sri Lanka)

According to the wind resource data for each location, the Skystream
(2.4kW) wind turbine can generate 990kWh/year in Colombo suburbs and
4959 kWh/year near Hambantota.
Annual Grid Sales and Purchases in Sri-Lankan locations as percentages of annual load
consumption of 1993 kWh

Main components of a wind turbine and their share of

the overall turbine cost for a 5MW wind turbine

Po

in

le
b
i
ss

l
a
oc

le
b
si
s
Po lattice towers

in

l
a
oc

t
s
Pa

p
x
e

e
i
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e

Palmer
Putnam's
1.25megawatt wind turbine
was one of the engineering
marvels of the late 1930's,
but the jump in scale was
too great for available
materials.

s
e
nc

The turbine failed in March 1945,

when strong winds tore off one of
its blades.
24

Can we make large wind rotor

blade in Sri Lanka?

Capacity and wind rotor

size of the wind turbines

Growth in size of commercial wind

turbine designs

 Generators:

Controls

bl
e

Po
ss
i

68% cost component by Local

technology
32% cost component Foreign
technology

ta
rg
et

Cost of Wind energy

How much of foreign cost component in

Solar, Hydro and Coal power generations???

Oil is still the king

The USGS assessment identifies more
than 3000billion barrels recoverable
conventional oil are available in the
world
Non conventional oil from tar sands and
shales will play an increasingly
important role after 2020 and 30 years
afterwards.
Coal will also become important in some
countries.
30

Do we need to move renewables?

If governments are serious about
moving to renewables, they cannot
rely on the market to do it for them.

31

Why renewable energy?

Environmental friendly
Need not foreign currency
Can not control the prices of
oil/coal
The price is not determined by free
market.

Limitation of fossil fuel

32

Conclusions
Considerable amount of wind power potential
installed capacity is available in Sri Lanka.
Absorptive capacity of wind energy to the national
network is limited.
At present, there is possibility to develop further
around 100MW wind power generations in Sri
Lanka.
Wind power generation can be further expanded,
according to the future development of the
network.
Cost of wind power generation is competitive with
the other sources of renewable in Sri Lanka.
If government is serious about moving to
renewables, they cannot rely only on the market
and should also consider the socio-economic &

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