Sri Lanka needs to introduce energy sector reforms urgently as the nation is far behind compared countries in the region, Director, Asian Development Bank, South Asia Energy Division, Dr. Priyantha Wijetunga told guests at the launch of ‘Techno 2019’ at the Marino Beach Hotel, Colombo last week.
“Even countries such as Bangladesh and the Maldives in addition to India have introduced series of legislature encouraging more renewable energy projects to be implemented towards greener environment. Even oil rich countries too are today looking and investing on solar and wind power projects,” he said.
The Asian Development Bank too has provided substantial funding for these initiatives.
“More should be done by the Sri Lankan authorities to promote projects powered by renewable energy. India has planned to have over 175 GW of power through renewable energy sources by 2025 which also would be used for transportation, power generation and even for agriculture. India is also investing heavily on Smart metering systems and Sri Lanka should take a cue from these initiatives,” Wijetunga said.
The theme for the ‘Techno 2019’ exhibition is ‘Innovative Engineering towards a Sustainable Sri Lanka’.
“Today, the current issues faced by us are very complex in nature and hence there is no doubt that engineering needs to be innovative. Development of the country in a sustainable manner is closely related to innovative engineering. This is evident as sustainable development directly depends on the appropriate and timely actions initiated by the engineers.
Therefore, engineers have a crucial role to play in inspiring, collaborating and being creative in all their endeavours to make sure that the country is properly guided in its efforts towards sustainable development,” Techno Chairman Eng. (Prof.) S. B. S. Abaykoon said.
Sri Lanka has set an ambitious target to reach 50 percent of energy through renewable energy sources by 2030.
In the recent past, the world has focussed on renewable energy as it has a major role to pay in climate change. Sri Lanka should be lauded for been the first country in the region to buy power from consumers when the households fitted solar energy in their roof tops, he said.