Pettah Power Station was a

thermal power station A thermal power station is a type of power station in which heat energy is converted to electrical energy. In a steam-generating cycle heat is used to boil water in a large pressure vessel to produce high-pressure steam, which drives a stea ...

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

in south western

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

History

Pettah Power Station opened in 1898 and was located on Gasworks Street in the

Pettah Pettah may refer to: * Pettah of Ahmednagar, a fortified town outside the Fort of Ahmednagar stormed by British soldiers in 1803 during Second Anglo-Maratha War * Pettah, Colombo, a neighborhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka located east of the City centr ...

area of central

. It was Ceylon's second power station after the one on Bristol Street in the

Fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

area. It was acquired by the Colombo Electric Tramways and Lighting Company (CETLC) after the company was formed in 1902. CETLC was bought by the government in 1928 and its operations transferred to the Department of Government Electrical Undertakings (DGEU). One more 3MW

steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

was added in the 1930s. Three 1MW

Diesel generator A diesel generator (DG) (also known as a diesel Genset) is the combination of a diesel engine with an electric generator (often an alternator) to generate electrical energy. This is a specific case of engine generator. A diesel compression- ...

sets were added during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In 1956 the station's generating capacity stood at 9MW (one 3MW steam unit and three 2MW Mirlees diesel units). Six 2MW Mirlees diesel units were installed in 1957. In 1959 the station's generating capacity stood at 16MW (one 3MW steam unit, three 1MW diesel units and five 2MW diesel units). By the early 1960s the station's generating capacity stood at 18MW (one 3MW steam unit, three 1MW diesel units and six 2MW diesel units) but its effective generating capacity stood at 14.5MW. 4MW of diesel units were transferred to Chunnakam Power Station. In 1969 the station's generating capacity stood at 16MW. By the early 1980s the station's generating capacity stood at 6MW (three 2MW diesel units from the 1950s) and, although each unit was capable of 1.8MW output, they were only operating at 1.5MW each.

References

{{coord missing, Sri Lanka 1898 establishments in Ceylon Buildings and structures in Colombo Former power stations in Sri Lanka Oil-fired power stations in Sri Lanka