One power plant at Norochcholai shut down

12 April 2016 02:15 pm

One of the three power plants at the Norochcholai Lakvijaya Coal Power Plant (LCPP) had been shut down for three days since last night, due to a leakage of a steam boiler in the phase three, Power and Energy Ministry said.

However, Ministry Spokesman Pathum Pasqual said the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) had not announced a power outage, owing to the failure of the coal power plant.

Meanwhile, Power and Renewable Energy Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya rejected the claims that one of the boilers had exploded causing the shutdown of the power plant.

“The power plant was shut down because of a leak. The engineers were able to find the leak and take measures immediately shut down the power plant. If it was not shut down, the boiler could have exploded,” he said and assured that there would be no power outage during the New Year season.

He said the Prime Minister had advised the CEB to provide electricity supply without any disruption during the festive season.

“Even the phase one of the Noraichcholai coal power plant malfunctioned from the beginning. The full capacity of the phase one is 300 MW but it had not generated to full capacity for a long period,” the Minister said.

He said within three says, the Phase One, and Phase Three of the power plant would be repaired and assured that there would be no interruptions to the power supply during the New Year season.(Chaturanga Pradeep)