COLOMBO, SRI LANKA – The United States Energy Association, under the South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy Integration (SARI/EI), with funding from the United States Agency for International Development, organized a South Asia Regional Workshop on Competitive Electricity Markets that took place March 18 – 20, 2014 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The first two days of the workshop included technical presentations by power pool experts, updates on cross-border electricity trade (CBET) from each of the participating countries, and open discussions on the development of a regional grid and electricity market in South Asia. On the final day of the workshop, participants visited generating stations in the Puttalam area.
The participating utility and government executives discussed the benefits of a regional power pool and the steps necessary to form a South Asian energy market. By examining the evolution of various power pools around the world, the participants were exposed to the challenges faced in different political and regulatory environments, as well as the universal benefits achieved by implementing regional electricity markets. By interconnecting grids, utilities can achieve economies of scale that provide increased grid reliability, lower energy production cost through centralized dispatch, a decreased need for infrastructure investment, and the provision of ancillary grid services.