The Hon. Ravi Karunanayake

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak at this time. First, I thank Hon. Ajith P. Perera for bringing this Motion. If we cast our minds back to 2016, when I was the Minister of Finance, we launched the “Soorya Bala Sangramaya” initiative. At that time, Hon. Ajith P. Perera was the State Minister. He personally drove this, took ideas on board and implemented them. In 2016, we introduced a zero-duty regime for all solar power generation. We made all renewable energy equipment zero-duty to create a foundation to meet the needs you had. That was not just ad hoc; we aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and, as a forerunner, with COP summits. We took it forward. Today we discuss how to operationalize it.

¶ 02 Hon. Minister, at present, the CEB total installed capacity is 5,010 MW: thermal power around 1,928 MW and renewables around 3,200 MW. Further, hydropower about 1,535 MW; CEB wind about 103 MW; IPP wind about 103 MW; ground-mounted solar about 137 MW; rooftop solar about 930 MW. I believe these numbers have further increased. Mini-hydro and other non-conventional sources together add significant capacity, including biomass and municipal solid waste around 108 MW. We speak with knowledge. This is an industry that can be developed domestically as well. Today’s debate is about an issue with the feed-in tariff and the move to massive tenders. That is what we are addressing.

¶ 03 Hon. Presiding Member, on 16 February 2025, the Sunday Times reported, I quote: “The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has appointed a committee to introduce a ‘curtailment mechanism’ for solar power systems to cut production when electricity demand is low.”

¶ 04 Based on that, on 4 April 2025, the Additional General Managers were instructed by Acting General Manager Eng. Wasantha Edussuriya by letter. I quote:

¶ 05 “‘Net Plus’ and ‘Net Plus Plus’ solar producers of 100 kW and above from 3.00 p.m. on April 10, 2025 to 3.00 p.m. on April 21, 2025 in order to manage the system stability during the anticipated low demand period.

¶ 06 Therefore, you are requested to take necessary actions and ensure the switch off of above categories during the defined time period permanently. Further, please arrange a meeting to inform the respective customers prior to the process conduct. Sample SMS (in three languages) to inform the customers regarding the meeting to conduct on April 8, 2025 Tuesday has already been sent to you.

¶ 07 The matters to be communicated to customers, are provided in Annex I.”

¶ 08 This is not an Opposition-created bogey. We tabled a copy of the letter the CEB Acting General Manager sent to all Additional General Managers. I submitted it because some speakers earlier implied we were agitating for the sake of it. This is about the national electricity system.

¶ 09 I will speak shortly on 2023–2024 generation. For context, the CEB’s loss in 2022 was Rs. 480 billion; in 2023 it was Rs. 320 billion. That is not a small hit. But in 2024 there was a profit of Rs. 220 billion. The reason you could record a profit today is because leaders like Ranil Wickremesinghe, Kanchana Wijesekera, and Ajith P. Perera initiated measures then and carried them forward to create a path to profitability. At that time you could have easily said “we reduced electricity tariffs.” But earlier tariff cuts drove the CEB deeper into loss. This government reduced tariffs by 20 percent upon coming in; however, there is still a loss of Rs. 50–60 billion. Under the cost-reflective pricing strategy you’ve agreed with the IMF, you were told to increase tariffs by 12 percent. Given current conditions it should be 17 percent.

¶ 10 Let me cite a concrete example. On 26 March 2025, daily national generation shares were: thermal 50 percent; hydro 30.05 percent; solar 18.86 percent. I took one day’s snapshot because getting more is hard. Under a cost-reflective approach, tariffs must rise; but your political line is to reduce tariffs. That is fine—if you want lower tariffs, you must reduce generation cost. How? A Deputy Minister earlier said the cost of capital is 7 percent. Where in the world do you get 7 percent cost of capital today? Even via multilateral windows it is higher. In general today it is 13–14 percent, sometimes 17–18 percent. These are not blue-chip corporates; most plants under 10 MW are done by SMEs who cannot secure ultra-low-cost finance.

¶ 11 As an example, I table “CEB Cost of Generation – Year 2023.”

¶ 12 Summary: CEB thermal (oil) generation of 2,039 GWh cost Rs. 146 billion (Rs. 14,600 crores). CEB coal generation in 2023 totaled Rs. 181 billion. IPP thermal (oil) cost Rs. 80.58 billion. Subtotal thermal about Rs. 407 billion. CEB hydro cost Rs. 11.18 billion. Non-Conventional Renewable Energy, 3,192 GWh, cost Rs. 52 billion. Renewables subtotal Rs. 63 billion to produce roughly 48 percent of generation. Total generation 16,132 GWh cost Rs. 470 billion; renewables’ share 48 percent costing Rs. 63 billion. To produce 52 percent with thermal cost about Rs. 407 billion. The contrast is clear.

¶ 13 In 2024 it is even more striking: CEB thermal 899 GWh cost Rs. 51 billion; CEB coal 3,253 GWh (38 percent) cost Rs. 69.2 billion; IPP thermal 416 GWh cost Rs. 25.7 billion; CEB hydro 4,590 GWh cost Rs. 5.5 billion; NCRE (wind, solar, small hydro) 3,192 GWh cost Rs. 25.5 billion. As a share of total cost, thermal takes 83 percent, while 46 percent from renewables costs only 17 percent. That is the gap. So why are the media again pushing a “diesel mafia” story? We know why. In 2018, when I was Power Minister, we conducted a major review. We are happy some of that is being continued. First, amend the CEB Act. Commercialize—not privatize—the CEB; unbundle and enable performance while retaining public ownership. We must scale wind and solar because average thermal generation today costs about Rs. 71 per unit. With that cost, you can safely move to renewables. At minimum, bring in BESS—Battery Energy Storage Systems—