CEB violated the transmission license: PUCSL

The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) has told the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) that the latter has violated the Transmission License on maintaining an uninterrupted power supply throughout the country three times in the last 6 months since September 27, last year, by way of islandwide power failures.

PUCSL Chairman Saliya Mathew has written to General Manager, CEB, M.C.Wickramasekara saying that it was the responsibility of the Transmission Licensee (CEB) under Condition 30 of the Transmission License to maintain an uninterrupted power supply throughout the country.

“Therefore you are required to inform the Commission on actions the Transmission Licensee has taken in order to prevent repetition of an islandwide power failures and the Transmission Licensee is responsible for maintaining the system fulfilling this criterion,”Mr. Mathew said..

Further, the Commission highlights that single element failure in the power system shall not result in islandwide power failure and the Transmission Licensee is responsible for maintaining the system.

The Commission has conducted a comprehensive study with the assistance of Manitoba HVDC research centre on the power failure on September 27, 2015 and observed several shortcomings.

The dynamic transmission system model used by the CEB Transmission planning and system control branches are not accurate enough for dynamic response analysis, and the model data need to be verified with field tests for system elements along with accurate modeling of loads, according to those observations. (Sandun A Jayasekera)