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Sri Lanka, India to enter long-term strategic cooperation in power sector

By: Staff Writer

Colombo (LNW): Sri Lanka is exploring ways and means of further enhancing cooperation with India in the power and renewable energy sector.

The Indian Government has agreed to promote and strengthen renewable energy sector cooperation between both countries.

Accordingly, the Cabinet of Ministers granted approval to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding between Sri Lanka and India with regard to energy sector cooperation.Accordingly, Public and Private Entities in both India and Sri Lanka will work on this project.

The Cabinet had granted approval for the Solar Power, Wind Power, and Bio Fuel projects to be implemented under the agreement.

India and Sri Lanka have agreed to jointly build in two stages a 135-megawatt solar power plant in the island nation’s eastern port district of Trincomalee to promote renewable energy.

Sri Lankan Cabinet has given approval for the project as the country aims to generate 70 per cent of its electricity requirement by 2030 from renewable energy sources.

“The National Thermal Power Corporation of India and the Ceylon Electricity Board have entered into an agreement to jointly implement a solar power project in two stages,” said a note from the Cabinet meeting held this week.

“As the first stage of this project, it is expected to implement a solar power project of 50 megawatts with a total estimated investment of USD 42.5 million and to construct a 220 kilowatts transmission line with 40-km length from Sampoor to Kappalthure spending USD 23.6 million, it said. It is expected to complete this stage in two years from 2024 to 2025,” it said.

A solar power generation plant with an additional 85 megawatts is expected to be constructed under a total investment of USD 72 million at the second stage of this project, the note said.

Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner to India, Milinda Moragoda met India’s Minister of Power and New and Renewable Energy, Shri Raj Kumar Singh in New Delhi on Thursday (May 18) to discuss ways and means of further enhancing cooperation with India in the power and renewable energy sector.

The duo discussed a range of issues pertaining to bilateral cooperation in the power and renewable energy sector, including the grid connectivity between Sri Lanka and India.

The discussion particularly focused on the ways and means to deepen and broaden the long-term strategic cooperation in the sector.

Minister Singh was a senior officer of the Indian Administrative Service before joining politics, and served as the Home Secretary of India from 2011 to 2013. He has served as a Member of Indian Parliament since 2014.

The same day, Moragoda met with the newly appointed US Ambassador to India Eric M. Garcetti at the US Embassy in New Delhi.

The Sri Lankan envoy congratulated Garcetti on his recent appointment as the Ambassador of the United States to India, and they had a productive exchange of views on a range of matters pertaining to Sri Lanka-US relations, including possible trilateral economic cooperation with the involvement of India.

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