How best to avoid power cuts

Tuesday, 15 February 2022 02:44 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Mohamed Zahran

The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) has published a 4-colour full page advertisement in the weekend newspapers requesting householders and offices to minimise electricity usage from 6.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. and 2.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. respectively until further notice.

This is in order to reduce the daily demand capacity of 300 MW and thereby eliminate the need for power cuts.

With regard to the above request I would like to suggest that businesses and government offices should commence work one hour or minimum half an hour early so that a considerable amount of electricity could be saved in the long run during the peak hour time slots. Householders will not only save electricity, but also be healthy if people could go to sleep early as there is a well-known saying that early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Therefore, we can very easily reduce our expenses for electricity, help the CEB and also be healthy (a spin-off benefit is that our medical bills will also come down).

Now that the smart electricity meters have been installed, CEB could implement the Time of Use (TOS) tariff – charging a premium price for electricity consumption during peak hours as consumers will be then compelled to reduce usage during peak hours.