Mr. Sunith Fernando is an expert in Wind Power Generation who has hands on experience of 40 years in Renewable Energy Development in Sri Lanka. Hence, his lecture was a valuable resource for the undergraduates. The faculty invited him, on 28th August 2015, to deliver a talk on wind power for the first batch students, who are specializing in the field of Electrical and Electronic engineering. It is also part of the course unit on Electric Power (EC4030) in their fourth semester of study.
This course unit expects to provide a detailed study on power generation. Renewable energy generation is one of the promising topics, which will be discussed in detail in this course. In order to provide more knowledge on latest development in wind and solar power generation, a guest lecture is included as part of the course.
Mr. Sunith Fernando is the first person, who donated 300,000 rupees to be placed in the capital as fixed deposit and the interest was given to the students as studentship. Secondly he worked with SENOK and helped to add another 1,200,000 rupees to the capital. Further it was growing up with number of well-wishers’ help. With his initiation, this Engineering Studentship has grown to a level where it serves over 30 students at the moment.
Brief biography of Mr. Sunith Fernando:
With 40 years of experience in renewable energy development in Sri Lankan state, international and consulting agencies, Mr. Fernando’s expertise in Mechanical Engineering is unique for Sri Lanka. He is highly experienced in wind, hydro and biomass resource assessment, power plant design, and has hands-on experience in a range of renewable energy project design and project management. His initial experience in the energy sector was in the implementation of the wind-based water pumping project for the Water Resources Board in Sri Lanka. He subsequently developed the wind resource assessment for the southern coastal belt, and went on to be the local consultant for the country-wide wind resource assessment study along with NREL of USA. He is equally experienced in small hydro resources assessment and in conceptual design. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, UNDP and ADB from time to time, and works full-time at RMA. He is the team leader to RMAs team of consultants for the first commercial wind power plant commissioned in Puttalam, Sri Lanka in May 2010.