Sri Lanka’s Sustainable Energy Authority (SEA) invites expressions of interest from hydropower consultants to help refurbish, repower, or develop new micro-hydropower projects on Sri Lanka’s tea and rubber estates. Responses are due December 4.
With funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Sri Lanka seeks to develop renewable energy sources for transmission grid interconnection. SEA said about 250 hydro sites of up to 250 kW each have been found on tea and rubber estates, but are considered too small for commercial development under its renewable energy initiative.
The agency recruited consultants in 2011 to help implement the current program to develop or rehabilitate the micro-hydro projects. Separately, the government agreed in October to allow Japan’s Kosgulana Hydro Co. to develop the 1.5-MW Kosgulana hydro project on the Kukule Ganga River.
SEA invites expressions of interest from consultants to: draft a development model for hydropower capacities that fall outside both commercial and off-grid efforts; encourage financial service providers to fund small-scale renewable energy projects; advance a net metering program for renewable projects by the Ceylon Electricity Board; and establish an implementation mechanism to rehabilitate and repower hydropower resources on plantation properties through an energy service company.
The consultant team is to include an electrical-mechanical hydropower engineer, a civil hydropower engineer, and technical officers in electrical, mechanical, and civil fields. The budget for the consulting work is US$60,000.
A solicitation notice, including terms of reference, may be obtained from the ADB Internet site, www.adb.org, under the links “Businesses,” “Consulting Opportunities,” “Energy,” “LOAN-2733.”
Expressions of interest are to be submitted via the ADB website by December 4. For information, contact Harsha Wickramasinghe, Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority, 3G 17 BMICH, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 07 Sri Lanka; E-mail: [email protected]; Internet: www.energy.gov.lk.
