50 சதவீதமான பகுதிகளில் மின் விநியோகம் வழமைக்கு திரும்பியது!

Daily FT and EconomyNext report that Sri Lanka experienced a nationwide blackout on Saturday, October 17, 2026, after a generator failure led to the national grid collapsing. The National System Operator said the collapse unfolded within about 30 seconds, according to Daily FT. Lankadeepa reports that the output of Norochcholai Unit 1 fell from 187 megawatts to below five megawatts shortly before the outage.

EconomyNext reports that Unit 1 at the Lakvijaya Power Plant in Norochcholai tripped during maintenance after a boiler diaphragm came loose and ruptured. The loss of generation caused grid frequency to fall, after which unmonitored renewable sources—mostly solar—also disconnected, according to EconomyNext. The outlet says the operator had been managing 1,137 megawatts from controlled coal and hydro sources alongside about 1,700 megawatts of largely unmonitored renewable power.

EconomyNext reports that Energy Minister Aruna Karunathilaka told Parliament the government had begun an inquiry through the Ministry Secretary and questioned officials about why maintenance was scheduled during low demand and high solar generation. He said investigators would examine how the failure of one unit led to a national grid collapse, according to the outlet. Lankadeepa separately reports that Karunathilaka said he had concerns and questions about the outage. The Sunday Times headline says an Upper Kotmale plant failure was suspected, but EconomyNext reports Karunathilaka said Kotmale was not connected to the initial failure.

EconomyNext reports that restoration began at 12:37 p.m. through the Kotmale plant, the high-voltage transmission network was back by 4:58 p.m., and supply had returned to all consumers by 9:56 p.m. Hospitals, water-treatment facilities and airports were given priority, according to the outlet. It says reconnections by external plants that did not follow the expected sequence slowed restoration.

Newswire reports that Cabinet spokesperson Nalinda Jayatissa rejected opposition claims linking the blackout to substandard coal. He said the unit had been shut for maintenance from July 30 to September 30 and that coal from a new shipment had been used since September 4. Newswire says Unit 1 remained offline when Jayatissa spoke, and he expected it to return to normal operation the following day based on assurances from authorities. Hiru News reports that electricity supply was being managed until Norochcholai rejoined the system.

Written automatically by AI from the outlets’ own reports, and not reviewed by an editor. It can be wrong — the original report is the authority.