Renewable Energy for Sri Lanka

Renewable energy sources will undoubtedly have to replace fossil fuels in the future. Renewable Energy sources like sunlight, wind wave power, and geothermal heat are free and are not harmful to the environment. A complete and stabilized dependence on Renewable Energy sources would bring about economic, social and environmental sustainability to a country.

However, we are not ready to completely embrace this situation as yet. Only 16 percent of the world's energy demands come from renewables (according to wikipedia). while most of the technologies with respect to tapping renewable energy sources are still in research level, some technologies that are already present like photo voltaic cells need refinements to make them more practical and economical. Because of this reason, renewable energy is not considered "stable" by many. This has resulted in a certain reluctance in investing in renewable energy production. Investments in renewable energy are also considerably higher than investments made to improve or maximize results from non renewable sources, although in the long run, a proper and stable system generating energy from renewables will be economically beneficial.

In a situation like this, it is essential to consider whether Sri Lanka, a developing country should primarily invest on these new methods of renewable energy production. Since at present most of the involved technologies are still in an experimental phase, setting aside major investments on renewables alone will be like experimenting with the fragile economy of the still developing country. While it is true that renewable energy sources are profitable in the long run, a large investment in a potential renewable energy generation project that does not turn out to work as expected, can damage the economy of the country. An important fact to note is that most of Sri Lanka's electricity comes from hydroelectric plants, which themselves are renewable sources. Hydroelectricity in Sri Lanka has been tried and tested and found to work extremely well so far, satisfying the country's electricity needs without harming the environment.

The best argument put forward for renewable energy is that it is environmentally friendly. Sri Lanka, on this matter would have no problems because unlike most countries, because most of its electricity comes from hydroelectric plants. In this sense, Sri Lanka already has a working and stable renewable energy production system in place. Therefore it is more advisable to invest in expanding and improving the hydroelectric plants than to invest in experimental technologies that may or may not work. Also not having proper R&D facilities on this area, to shift into renewables at once will mean dependence on another party which is also not very useful.  Once the country reaches economic stability and develops the resources in technology and infrastructure new methods of renewable energy production can be given consideration.

image from wikipedia