By Rajan Philip

Rajan Philips

The standoff between the Government of Sri Lanka and what I would call the ‘union government’ of the Ceylon Electricity Board is now entering its fourth week. The standoff has been created by the seemingly mutinous Engineers of the CEB against the government’s restructuring of the institution and the electricity sector itself. The Sunday Island’s editorial last week called the standoff a game of chicken. In the game theory model of conflict between two parties, it is the union government that seems to be chickening out. The NPP government seems to be holding steady and driving through without yielding to what is patently an engineering blackmail.

The government kickstarted the reform or restructuring of the CEB in August, in accordance with the Electricity (Amendment) Act that it had passed earlier in the year. The amended Act provides for unbundling CEB into six separate state-owned holding companies. Four of the six companies are now being established that will take over the current functional divisions in the CEB, viz., Power Generation, Power Distribution, National Grid Control, and National Transmission and Network Services. The two dealing with CEB’s assets and the management of employee provident funds are to be set up later.

Although the government claimed that its reform launch has been well received by employees, CEB union leadership counter-launched a multi-phased protest starting with the work to rule format and the ultimatum that there would be a full blown strike if the government would not agree to union demands. The demands are not very specific and have been spelt out mostly in rhetorical terms.

In my reading of the union rhetoric, there are two improbable commandments: 1) there shall be a new collective agreement between the government of Sri Lanka and the union government of the CEB that will bind the government of Sri Lanka in perpetuity to the union government demands under not only the present CEB structure but also in all the six different companies that the CEB reform process will create; and 2) there shall be a parallel oversight of the entire reform process as well as the post-reform electricity sector, and this parallel oversight shall be provided by the present union government and its successors created through the aforesaid new collective agreement.

In short, the current crop of Electrical Engineers at the CEB would appear to be arguing that electricity is so important to the country that there must be a parallel electrical government run by Electrical Engineers at CEB in addition to the country’s elected government. These claims have nothing to do with professional obligations or revolutionary trade unionism. They are simply mafia blackmail. My indictment here is not intended to bad-brush every Electrical Engineer at CEB. Not at all. There are good engineers who are also good people. But they are helpless against the behemoth of a union that the bloated CEB has institutionally created.

Essential Service

On the two main reform contentions, viz., the public ownership of the new companies and the status of current CEB employees, both President Dissanayake and Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody have confirmed that the all the new companies will remain state-owned, and that the current CEB employees will be protected either through continuation of employment or voluntary retirement with compensation.    

On September 21, President Anurak Kumara Dissanayake issued a gazette order declaring electricity services as essential services, thereby rendering any strike action to disrupt them to be illegal. Almost immediately the President’s declaration was endorsed by Parliament without debate, which virtually makes it unanimous. There is no authority higher than that – when the executive and the entire legislature without division act in unison to declare electricity an essential service. But not so for the union government of the CEB. So, it seemed.

There was muttering that the CEB union government was going to challenge the declaration of electricity services as essential services. “The gloves are off,” shouted one observer and went on to warn that if the union government were to orchestrate extended power cuts, the NPP government might be inviting another Aragalaya for its own overthrow. The “president and his men” were advised to “regain the confidence of the working class”! This fear mongering would appear to have waned in the wake of news reports that “several trade unions”, out of the 28 that are at CEB, are backing out of the strike that had been planned for September 25, while continuing with the work-to-rule protest format that they were on from early September.

Some of the unions have reportedly indicated that they welcome the current “restructuring as an opportunity to finally break what they call the engineers’ monopoly at the CEB.” Even Human Resources are apparently managed by Engineers, one of whom has been quoted as providing the bizarre rationale that “[T]he CEB is a technical institute. For instance, tariff filing is a highly technical area involving formulas, mathematical equations, and parameters, so it naturally falls to engineers. Also, reforms could allow HR professionals to take charge in a new system, but under the current setup, an HR professional without technical knowledge cannot survive even one week.” That says it all!

It is unfortunate that the government did not engage the CEB union leaders in a televised public forum to hear and respond to their ‘grievances.’ Everyone in the country would have been able to see who is being reasonable and who is bluffing. More importantly, people would have seen how the facts are aligned and who is making things up. A public encounter would have given the government the opportunity to explain to the people, the purposes of reform and its processes in non-technical language. In my view, the government of Sri Lanka has a strong case on the facts as we know them. In fact, a very strong case both politically and technically. The main weakness of the government is that it has not been explaining the proposed reforms to the people with clarity and consistency. On the other hand, the union government of the CEB has no case at all. CEB Engineers, especially, have no ground for any grievance.

Reform and Renewables

Whichever way the current controversy plays out, the reform process by itself will not address the CEB’s crisis or the country’s energy predicament. At present over 50% of power generation is provided by non-renewable sources, i.e., coal (43%) and thermal (11%). Of the renewable sources of power, hydro accounts for 43% and wind for 3%. The CEB’s Long Term Generation Expansion Plan – a 20-year plan from 2025 to 2045, is committed to achieving the national objective of 70% power generation using renewable sources by 2030.

The Plan envisages that “solar power will be the prime driver of this expansion.” In addition, the plan expects the conversion of the West Coast and the Kelanithissa power plants to using natural gas as a relatively cleaner new source, and includes a roadmap for introducing nuclear power toward the end of the planning period.

The progressive expansion of non-renewable sources of power is imperative not only for environmental reasons, but also and more importantly for reducing the high generation costs of the non-renewable, thermal and coal, sources. But the development of solar and wind power generation requires curtailment and storage capacities in the system, as well as pricing mechanisms, to cope with the temporal variability of the two sources and the associated supply/demand fluctuations.

For all the talk about expanding solar and wind energy sources, there has been little discussion about the total non-development of storage capacities either through a battery system and/or through a pumped power plant storage system. According to Electrical Engineers of my vintage, the non development of storage capacities to accommodate the expansion of wind and solar sources is a longstanding problem and the result of total inaction of previous governments over several decades.

It is the lack of storage capacities that forces power system operators to limit purchasing solar/wind powers and/or call for shutting them off at source during low demand periods. The so called diesel generation mafia is not a technical explanation, unless the mafia has been a factor in delaying the development of storage capacities.                

Now, as with every other problem, the NPP government is left having to answer for the shortcomings of its predecessors. The NPP has not been helping itself either by its inability to explain the issues involved and how it is addressing them. There has not been much publicity given to the CEB’s own program to establish Battery Storage Systems at 16 Grid Substations in the country. International tenders have been called for implementing ten of them on a build-operate-own basis. The deadline for tenders, which were announced in August, has been extended to October 14, and it is not clear if the process will be frustrated by CEB Engineers refusing to be part of the tender process in their current work-to-rule mode.

Earlier in February, the CEB announced its plans for the Maha Oya Pumped Storage Hydropower Project, which would be the island’s first-ever ‘water battery.’ Located in Aranayake and Nawalapitiya, the water-battery scheme will include two ponds or reservoirs at different heights. During high supplies of solar/wind power water will be pumped from the lower to the upper pond, and it will be released down to operate the generators during periods of high power demand. The project is estimated to cost around $ 1 billion, and is expected to be completed by 2031.

A feasibility study has been completed, but no design work can start without securing international funding, which in turn will not be possible without the restructuring of the CEB. In the CEB’s 20-year Expansion Plan, the battery storage system is slated to start in 2025 and the pump storage scheme after 2028. Neither can be delayed and both should be expedited if the country is to have a sustainable system of electricity, as early as possible, and at affordable costs. The government has its work cut out in the electricity sector as in every other sector. CEB Engineers can play their part by facilitating the reform process instead of insisting on being a parallel government.