Lakvijaya is a 900 MW coal power station in North Western, Sri Lanka. It is operated by Ceylon Electricity Board. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 1.1 million homes (estimated). It ranks #4 of 55 Sri Lanka power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 2013, it is around 13 years old — relatively modern. In context, coal supplies about 27.5% of Sri Lanka's electricity; the national grid averages 329 gCO₂/kWh (61.6% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1030452.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 (location L100000103520); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 900 MW, Lakvijaya is below the median coal plant in Sri Lanka (1,200 MW). Technically it is described as subcritical. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Ceylon Electricity Board. All plants by this company →
This coal plant burns coal to raise high-pressure steam that spins a turbine-generator. It sits in a tropical savanna climate (Köppen As) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 8.0°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
This site has effectively no heating season (tropical/equatorial climate), so winter heat loss is not the driver here. The thermal concern shifts to year-round process heat and humidity/heat-driven corrosion of hot equipment.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #4 largest coal power plant of 6 in Sri Lanka by capacity.
Sri Lanka has 6 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 6,200 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 8.0178, 79.7232 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Lakvijaya is a 900 MW source-record coal power plant in North Western, Sri Lanka, commissioned in 2013.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 1,126,285 homes (estimated).
Lakvijaya is operated by Ceylon Electricity Board.
