Sri Lanka looks to China as Norochcholai power plant breaks down again

by admin
Aug 30, 2014
Sri Lankan authorities have announced that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be signed with China in September to help repair the $1.35 billion Norochcholai power plant as it broke down yet again this week.

The Sunday Times reported the MoU will be signed when China's President Xi Jingping visits Colombo on September 16th, with Sri Lanka's Power and Energy Minister Pavitra Wanniarachchi, adding the increased Chinese role will ensure there will not be “any future technical failures.”

Jellyfish reportedly clogged up filters at the trouble-plagued plant, with officials struggling to fix it before the Chinese President's visit. Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Media Spokesman Senajith Dassanayake said,

“Around 30-40 divers have to be used to remove these creatures from the filters. We were hoping to remove these creatures from the filters of Unit 1, but unfortunately, seas these days are extremely rough in the area and the divers haven’t been able to go in thus far.”

In 2012, an earlier breakdown at the plant had caused island-wide power shortages.

See our earlier posts:

26th breakdown and counting (11 January 2014)

Chinese power plant failure causes nationwide power cuts (25 July 2012)

12 breakdowns since power plant opening (21 August 2012)
 
Chinese engineers flown in amid questions of sabotage (18 August 2012)


Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button