An important thing to look for is whether the building has effective and trustworthy measures. The funniest thing about markets is that all past crashes are viewed as an opportunity, but all current and future crashes are viewed as a risk. However, senior business people are often overwhelmingly influenced by their own sales figures but have no particular lead on the future. For months, investors have been saying a pullback is inevitable, healthy, and should be welcomed. In most cases, investors have little or no say in the investments being made. On an aggregate basis, equities have historically been the most rewarding asset class for investors seeking to build wealth over time without using large amounts of leverage. For example, using this rule of thumb, a person who is 30 years old should invest 70 percent of their portfolio in equities and 30 percent in bonds. It has a bank of Solar PV panels covering 900 sqms, generating 120 KW of electrical energy, which amounts to about 40 percent of the hotel’s total electrical demand. The cost of a battery bank can be as much as a Solar PV panel for a well-designed system, which can provide power for several days when the Solar PV is not generating electricity.

The size of such battery banks required will depend on the size of the installation and the days for which the system can operate on battery power alone, with no input from other generation sources. The high cost of Solar PV panels and the large amount of batteries required for storage resulted in the cost of such installations being prohibitively high and not feasible for installation as alternate energy sources. Hence, from the surveys and studies carried out by the SWITCH-Asia Greening Sri Lanka Hotels programme, it has been found that Solar PV installation in hotels is still few and far between. Hence, in a typical installation, electricity is generated in the form of direct current (DC) and usually stored in batteries. In addition, the system requires an inverter to convert the electricity stored in the battery in the form of direct current (DC), to alternate current (AC) at a higher voltage, to be compatible with the downstream installation.

This 80 roomed resort hotel in Anuradhapura has been the trailblazer in taking a bold step in installing the largest Solar PV system in a hotel so far. It’s also about taking a close look at the contents of your portfolio and then forcing yourself to fix an asset allocation that is out of whack and to buy in sectors of the markets that are out of favour. There are probably slightly cheaper ETF’s out there and it might be worth doing the research on this. While doing this study, the project team also analysed the impact of the proposed electricity increases on domestic Solar PV installations as well. So, it is common that in Solar PV installations with a battery bank, some of the batteries have to be replaced before the specified lifetime. In that case you’d have quite a wide field. The 70s rate cycle was not an isolated case in its correlation with gold.

If the export is more than the consumption, credit is given (in kWh). The consumer is not paid for this ‘exported’ electricity but is given credit (in kWh), which is set off against his normal electricity consumption off the grid. This ‘trading’ of electricity units, recently allowed by the CEB, is referred to as net metering or grid tie. With rapidly increasing electricity rates, reduction in price of Solar PV panels and acceptance by the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) to trade electricity units with the grid, Solar PV installations are at present becoming more financially attractive. From the CEB’s/LECO’s point of view, there is some form of electricity demand reduction from the grid, since the consumer is now producing some quantum of electrical energy. This is effectively a ‘win-win’ situation for both the consumer and the electricity service provider (the CEB or LECO). There will be metering for consumption as well for export of energy to the CEB network.