The Cabinet has approved the award of a contract to build a 100 megawatt-hour battery energy storage system at the Kolonnawa grid substation, part of a wider upgrade of the station, the Daily Mirror and NewsFirst reported on Tuesday.
The contract goes to a joint venture between Ceylex Engineering (Pvt) Ltd and Xingneng Electric Power Construction Co. Ltd, selected from four bids received under the International Competitive Procurement Procedure. The award followed an evaluation of the bids and a recommendation by the High Level Procurement Committee, the Daily Mirror reported.
The proposal was put to Cabinet by Minister of Energy Anura Karunathilake.
Cost and funding
The two outlets give the contract value differently. The Daily Mirror puts it at EUR 2.61 million and Rs. 555.13 million, excluding taxes. NewsFirst reports the same euro and rupee amounts but adds a third component of USD 1.27 million, which the Daily Mirror does not mention. Neither outlet explains the difference.
The project sits under the Power Grid Strengthening and Renewable Energy Integration Project, financed with assistance from the Asian Development Bank. Its stated purpose is to reinforce the national grid and help absorb renewable generation, whose output varies through the day.
Cabinet first approved the Kolonnawa substation upgrade itself on 2 September 2024, according to NewsFirst. Tuesday’s decision covers the contract to carry it out.
Where it fits
The Daily Mirror described the installation as Sri Lanka’s first utility-scale battery energy storage system. That characterisation is the newspaper’s own, and it sits alongside an existing grid-battery programme already under way: the second of 16 grid-scale battery facilities was commissioned at Galle in September, with the National System Operator then targeting 160 MW of connected capacity. Those facilities are measured in megawatts of output rather than megawatt-hours of storage, so the two figures are not directly comparable.
