Norochcholai Power Plant generator failure linked to island-wide blackout

Rupavahini News and Newswire report that the Lakvijaya coal power plant at Norochcholai disconnected from the national grid on the morning of October 17, after an imbalance in the electricity system triggered its safety procedures. Lankadeepa reports that National System Operator chief executive Buddhika Samarasekara attributed the island-wide outage that day to the first generating unit’s output dropping rapidly from 187 megawatts to below 5 megawatts.

Sri Lanka Mirror reports that two other generating units were already shut for scheduled maintenance when the remaining unit stopped, reducing available generation and prompting authorities to restrict electricity supply for several days to help maintain grid stability. The reports do not provide further detail about the maintenance schedule.

Rupavahini News and Newswire say Energy, Ports and Civil Aviation Minister Anura Karunathilaka visited the plant on October 21 and discussed restoration work with engineering and technical staff. Newswire reports that he instructed officials to speed up the return to operation and thanked them for their efforts.

Reports differ on the expected return. Daily Mirror says two of the three units were expected to reconnect by the morning of October 22, while Hiru News reports the second unit was expected to rejoin the grid that day. Newswire and Rupavahini News say the plant was expected to resume operations on October 22, whereas another Ada Derana report and a Daily Mirror report give October 23 as the expected date. Sri Lanka Mirror says the NSO expected generation to resume on October 22 and scheduled power cuts to end the following day.

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.