Approaching fossil fuel crisis, growing demand for transportation, requirement of improved modes of transportation, all have been insisting ‘Electrified Transportation’ in Sri Lanka from a long time. This requires collaborative efforts of both power and transportation sectors. So far, experts have carried out their own research and policy makers have taken their own decisions either with or without the recommendations of the experts, but none were implemented yet.

This issue was the topic for the annual panel discussion organized by the Electrical Engineering Society (EESoc) of the University of Moratuwa, which was recently held at Water’s Edge, Colombo. A panel of professional experts presented their views and recommendations on the subject and also followed an open discussion with the audience of the corporate sector and University academics.

Minister of Power & Energy, Hon. Patali Champika Ranawaka taking part as the chief guest of the event emphasized the importance of changing the present non-sustainable economy based on the service sector to a sustainable knowledge based economy demanding technology and innovation.

The Former General Manager of the CEB and the Immidiate Past President of Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, Eng. Shavindranath Fernando, delivering the key note speech gave an insight to the role that the relevant authorities have so far played for electrification of transport. “In 1983, I was doing some work in the energy sector and I had to analyse the CEB load profile and the demand projections. To my surprise, there was an electricity demand component for railway electrification and 32 years later, we are still talking about railway electrification. Railway electrification was first proposed by none other than one of our great visionary engineers, D.J Wimalasurendra somewhere in the early 1920s” he said.

Further, Eng. Shavindranath, noting that even though the hybrid cars have been flourishing, electric cars have been imported only by a few, pointed out that “with the tax reductions for importation of electric vehicles, it is imperative that we all in the transport and energy sectors get together and address the myriad of issues that necessarily will have to be addressed urgently”.

The panel discussion with the professional expertise gave the opportunity for each panellist to present their views in their fields of knowledge on the subject. Dr. Lalithasiri Gunaruwan, Secretary to the Ministry of Internal transport and former General Manager of SLR was the first panellist to address the gathering.

Being a leading Economist, Dr. Gunaruwan speaking on the ups and downs of Sri Lankan economy came to the point that enhancing the productivity is the way to relieve the country from the middle income trap and energy should gain due focus as it is directly proportional to productivity. Dr. Gunaruwan said that if 1% of the petroleum imports can be saved through productivity and efficiency, it will save approximately 40 million USD per year, which is nearly one and half times the annual loss to SLTB and more than the annual operating loss of SLR and, electrification of transport operations might be a society friendly solution in this regard, to improve the productivity and competitiveness in the transportation sector.

Expressing the views on future trends of transportation, Prof. Amal S. Kumarage, Senior lecturer of the Dept of Transport & Logistics Management, University of Moratuwa and Former Chairman of the National Transport Commission mentioned that “The demand for mobility is increasing all the time, it has increased with population over the years but it has been noticed that even when the population stops growing the demand for mobility increases. In fact, it's found now that it's almost directly proportional to income” referring to the statistical details.

Looking into the future in case of Western province, he said that in order to maintain the present road speeds by 2030, the road capacity should be increased by 100% and highways will still be a requirement. Prof. Kumarage further stated that encouraging public transport, influencing to shift from road to rail and from private modes to public modes of transportation, providing a variety of transportation modes, saving energy and achieving cost effectiveness will resolve these issues.

Eng. Lakshitha Weerasinghe, Cheif Engineer (Business & Operational Strategy) of CEB said that “41% of the national income is spent on importing petroleum, 66% of this is for the transport sector and 98.5% transport sector petroleum usage of the country is to power road transport. If we can gradually transform our vehicle fleet into electricity what would happen is, the petroleum demand in the transport sector will transfer to the load.” Further, he explained that this can be encouraged by introducing a ‘Time of Day’ tariff for electricity with a low off peak rate to charge electric vehicles and renewable energy sources like wind are eligible to absorb this load. Eng. Lakshitha also spilled the beans on CEB’s considerations to set up rapid charging stations in the country.

Following the same concept of electric vehicles, Dr. Narendra De Silva, the Head of Engineering, LECO said, “There will be a smart meter where the vehicle will demand the number of hours of charging and we will dynamically allocate the capacity to the vehicles. Considering the efficiency issue, when you look at the overall efficiency of the entire lifecycle efficiency of this business, probably at the highest efficiency we'll be converting the primary energy to electricity at about 35-38%, then at the electric vehicle we'll be converting that efficiency at about 70-80%, this should be contrasted to the vehicle efficiency of somewhere lying about 15%. If you work out these numbers you will see that transmission losses should be less than 10% to make this efficiency pump economy... so every station or the other we may need to provide a connection to maintain the reliability of the network”. Further Dr. Narendra also commented on the need to increase the capacity of the transformers to meet the increased demand of the consumers.

Presenting the results of a case study on railway electrification, Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya, a premier Energy Consultant in the country and a Former President of Sri Lanka Energy Managers Association showed that its implementation can be started by electrifying Panadura to Veyangoda railway line. Dr. Siyambalapitiya explained that a 25kV overhead line can be used to supply power to the train and one of the rails can be used as the return path for the current, so that existing railway lines and stations can be used with modifications. Based on an economical appraisal of the proposed system, he said that it will cost nearly 30 million USD with an internal rate of return of 15.1% pointing out that, Electric Multiple Units can be imported at a similar cost to the Diesel Multiple Units.

Dr. Beshan Kulapala, Research Scientist at CodeGen International and the Project Manager of Vega™ Electric Car Project presented a brief overview of the technology behind electrified transportation talked about the feasibility of adopting that technology to Sri Lanka, which has already been a success in Vega™ Electric Car Project.

Once all the panellists have presented their ideas, the open discussion round raised a number of questions from the audience. There was a question as to whether the proposed Mono-rail system is still a possibility and the answer form the panel was that there are number of economically feasible solutions to improve the transportation sector other than that.

Prof. Samarajeewa Karunaratne, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa recalled his memories on electric trolly buses and tram cars in 1960s. Prof. K.K.Y.W. Perera, the Chancellor of University of Moratuwa joined him saying that the reason to terminate those was somehow due to increasing costs of electricity and disregard of the system. The implication of these academics was that we should learn lessons from the past and maximum flexibility of both authorities is an essence. Moreover, there were suggestions to implement at least a few electric busses known as Capa-busses that run in China, on our roads as well.

The Dept of Electrical Engineering of the University of Moratuwa presented the results and conclusions of a survey they conducted on Public Perception on Electrified Transportation. It said that majority of the respondents are willing to accept electrified transportation if the increment of the travelling fare is less than 25%. The conclusion altogether was that the public has a general idea, but lacks detailed knowledge about electrified transportation.

The panel discussion ended up with a number of valuable recommendations to electrify the transportation sector and of course the relevant authorities have already stated that they have given a fresh start in this regard. Let’s hope that this time the long standing dream of electrified transportation will come true.