Floating solar power plants on Chandrika Wewa, Kiriiban Wewa

Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Irrigation will allocate 0.99 hectares of water surface area and 0.1 hectares of land from the Chandrika Wewa and Kiriibban Wewa reservoirs for two floating solar power generation pilot projects.

The cabinet of ministers has approved a proposal by the Minister of Irrigation to allocate funds for the two projects, which resulted from an agreement between Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Power & Energy and the Korean government’s Korea Institute for Advancement.

The land and water surface areas will be granted to the Sri Lanka Solar Energy Authority on an annual lease basis for running the two solar pilot projects, each with a capacity of 1 megawatt, a statement from the government information department said.

“A request had been made to provide 0.99 hectares each on the water surface of the Chandrika Wewa, located in the Embilipitiya Divisional Secretariat area, and the Kiriibban Wewa, located in the Sewanagala Divisional Secretariat area, and plots of 0.1 hectares each from the reservoir reserves for activities such as construction of power plants and transmission stations, training of maintenance workers and maintenance of solar panels.

“Implementation of the proposed projects will add about 3 gigawatt hours of annual electricity generation to the national grid,” the statement said.