The people who will run Sri Lanka’s grid in 2040 are in lecture halls right now. That is the simple reason First Energy signed on as platinum sponsor of Voltvision, the energy sector panel discussion organised by the Electrical Engineering Club at the Institute of Technology, University of Moratuwa.
The format was straightforward: put regulators, academics and system operators on one stage, let engineering students ask whatever they want, and see which questions come up. The answers said a lot about where the industry is heading.
Who was on the panel
The discussion brought together Prof. Rahula Attalage, Pro Vice Chancellor at the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya, Chairman of the Ceylon Electricity Board, Prof. Asanka Rodrigo of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, and Eng. Harsha Wickramasinghe, Deputy Director General of the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority. Eng. Manjula Wickramathilaka of ITUM moderated.
That is an unusual mix to get in one room: the utility, the regulator’s energy authority, and two universities, talking to students rather than to each other at a closed industry forum.
The theme that kept returning
A recurring thread through the evening was that energy problems are no longer solved inside a single discipline. A rooftop solar programme is simultaneously a power systems question, a finance question, a policy question and a consumer behaviour question. Get the engineering right and the tariff design wrong, and nothing gets built.
We see the same pattern in our own work. The hardest parts of a project are rarely the parts covered in a power systems syllabus:
- Grid absorption. Whether a feeder can take more midday generation, and what happens to voltage at the far end of the line when it does.
- Forecasting and flexibility. As the solar share grows, the system needs resources that can move, not just resources that can generate.
- Commercial structure. Who owns the asset, who carries the performance risk, and what the contract says in year fifteen.
- Operations. Cleaning schedules, string monitoring and spares availability, which quietly decide whether a plant hits its modelled yield.
Why an EPC company sponsors a student event
We are not shy about the commercial logic. Our industry has a hiring problem, and it is not a shortage of graduates. It is a shortage of graduates who have seen what a real site looks like: the civil work, the cable schedules, the commissioning tests, the site diary, the argument with the utility about the metering point.
Sponsoring an event like Voltvision costs far less than the cost of hiring badly. It also gives students a reason to talk to engineers who do this work daily, instead of meeting the sector for the first time at an interview.
What we tell engineering students
Learn the grid, not just the generator. Anyone can size an array. The engineers in demand are the ones who can explain what that array does to the network it connects to.
Get comfortable with data. Modern plants produce string level data continuously. The skill that matters is noticing a two percent drift in one string before it becomes a failed combiner box.
Spend time on site. Six months of construction supervision teaches things no simulation will: how cable routes actually get installed, why drainage matters, how weather moves a programme.
Learn to write clearly. Most engineering decisions are approved or rejected by people who are not engineers. The recommendation that gets funded is the one that was explained well.
Where we go from here
Sri Lanka’s renewable ambitions depend less on technology availability than on the depth of the engineering bench that can plan, build and operate these systems for decades. Events that connect students directly to the utility, the regulator and the companies building projects are a practical part of that, and we intend to keep backing them.
If you are a final year student or a recent graduate interested in solar engineering, our careers page lists current openings and internships.
Sources: Institute of Technology, University of Moratuwa, Electrical Engineering Club, Voltvision panel discussion · First Energy