Small Wind Power Case Study: Sri Lanka (Southwest Windpower)

Wind Power Improves Islanders' Quality of Life

The small island of Baththalangunduwa, about 10km off the West Coast of Sri Lanka is the setting for a power system that was designed to supply reliable power to remote areas of Sri Lanka while promoting renewable energy as a long-term, cost-effective energy solution.

The project was conceived by USAID Sri Lanka, and funded by the US Asia Environment Program’s “Council of State Government” grant. This provided the seed capital to provide the study and equipment for a power supply (wind turbines and backup diesel generator) to a remote island off the west central coast of Sri Lanka.

This island is scarcely 4km long and less than 1 km wide, housing about 3000 fisher families who live in basic palm-frond huts, with little fresh water, basic sanitation, no health facilities and no power grid. The local lifestyle consists of fishing in the early mornings, then preparing and drying the fish, and repairing nets in the afternoon and evenings, limited by the lighting available from kerosene lamps or small generators. There’s one school, a church, a mosque, and a store.

As well as providing the immediate benefit of power to a group of households, the project is intended to become the model for similar development on the many un-powered fishing islands off the Sri Lanka coast. The power system is maintained under an owner/manager, who is responsible for revenue collections from those receiving power, and allocating these funds to managing and maintaining the system. The project sets up an independent power producer who operates under a profit motive to maintain the power supply. We feel it is a more valid model than purely grant-funded capital works with no financial mechanism for their continuation past the duration of the project.

An additional monitoring program is provided to log a year’s worth of performance data. This provides the information to establish a carbon credit value of the offset in carbon dioxide that would have otherwise been generated by diesel power in a conventional power system. Monitoring over the latter part of 2004 and into 2005 will yield a power input/output summary which will then be audited by C-Trade, a project sponsor, for establishing a benchmark for similar carbon offset values of such projects. This may provide a means of funding similar project under upcoming carbon trading facilities where sponsor companies can buy carbon credits in exchange for seed capital for similar projects.

Success Indicators

Installation was commenced in November 2003, the power reticulation completed by February 2004 and the system was fully functioning by March 2004.

The system provides an average of around 12 kWh/day from two Whisper H80 1kW wind systems stored in the 24V, 450Ah tubular cell Exide batteries, converted by two India-made Unitron 1.5kW sine inverters. Power is reticulated via overhead lines to a mini-grid of 16 families, a church, a store and a VCR movie theatre. Consumers buy power based on current limiting power boards: most are limited to 5A at 240W. The higher the amperes on the fuse, the greater the power tariff.

The power customers have continued to enjoy the added power benefits of this clean, low cost and silent power supplied mainly from wind. Winds average over 6 metres/sec for most of the year, so power has been abundant and the batteries kept charged. Often the manager has even extended power availability past 10 p.m. most nights, and rarely uses the backup diesel. It was a pleasure to see fishermen sitting outside the open air movie house, mending nets in the spotlights while enjoying the raucous “Bollywood” music blaring into the night! Recently the system manager and store owner Mr Mudaladi has undertaken to purchase an additional wind turbine to add to the system so he can power a refrigerator for offering cold drinks to his customers. He’s proud of his “wind powered store” and wants to add a “wind powered refrigerator”!

Lessons Learned:

There were some “teething” problems because of the difficulties of the site, including the high tide impinging on the foundations for wind turbine towers, and the highly corrosive salt environment attacking some components of the power boards and turbines. A re-fitting of turbine and some power hardware was undertaken in September 2004 to upgrade the turbine components to resist these humid, salty conditions.

Data-logging has had ongoing problems because of the corrosive environment, and data has been intermittent in quality due to sensitive instrument problems. A refit of the data logger system is planned for early 2005 to upgrade the anemometer and logging components.

Next Steps:

USAID has indicated that it is interested in implementing similar wind/battery "mini grid” projects using this model in other parts of Sri Lanka. As the USAEP program has ceased, there may be other mechanisms available to sponsor such projects, but self-funding initiatives will be the ultimate aim for spreading the technology beyond Aid.

Southwest Windpower wishes to thank the project participants including USAID, CSG-IRG grant, and installers Industrial Services Bureau, especially Rohitha and the installation team for their dedicated and uncomplaining work in getting the project installed and running.