By Niranji Jayawardena   (LBO) –

A new 36 Megawatt power plant will come online in the northern Jaffna peninsular at the end of the month ending power cuts in the area, officials said. At the moment, the Jaffna grid of the state-run Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is isolated from the rest of the national grid by a stretch of land controlled by Tamil Tiger guerrillas.

The area has a peak power need of 32 Megawatts but existing thermal plants can only supply 19MW, mass media minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena told reporters. The power firm Agrico runs a 12.5 MW plant and the CEB runs an old plant which can now deliver only 3MW of power, while Koolair provides the balance, an official said.

The CEB had originally installed an 8MW plant in 1958 but it had gone into dis-use following a protracted conflict in the area. It had been revived in 2006. Jaffna has power cuts around 6.00 pm to 9.00 pm. The plant built by a firm called Northern Power Limited will take over when the contracts for emergency power plants end. The minister says the agreement with Agrico will end in December.

At the moment, there are around 94,000 customers in Jaffna where the official population is around 630,000.

The existing plants run on diesel. An official said CEB now buys a unit at prices between 26 to 38 rupees, which can vary according to fuel prices. The plant of Northern Power, which cost 20 million US dollars to build, runs on furnace oil.

More than 150 Chinese workers are working at Chunnakkam, a ministry official said.

(Courtesy : LBO )