Sri Lanka hit by islandwide power outage

Daily FT reports that the National System Operator said a generator failure caused the nationwide blackout on Saturday, October 17, and the national grid collapsed within 30 seconds. EconomyNext reports that the outage began at 11:43 a.m. during maintenance on Unit 1 at the Norochcholai coal power plant, when a boiler diaphragm failure forced the unit to trip. Lankadeepa reports the unit’s output fell from 187 megawatts to below five megawatts shortly before the outage.

EconomyNext reports that, before the failure, the system operator was managing 1,137 megawatts from controlled coal and hydro sources, alongside about 1,700 megawatts of largely solar renewable generation that it described as unmonitored. It says the loss of the unit caused grid frequency to fall, after which renewable sources disconnected and the imbalance led to a wider collapse. The Sunday Times says a failure at the Upper Kotmale plant was initially suspected; EconomyNext reports that Energy Minister Aruna Karunathilaka later said Kotmale was not involved in the initial failure.

EconomyNext reports that Karunathilaka told Parliament an official inquiry had begun through the Ministry Secretary, including questions about why maintenance was scheduled during low demand and high renewable output. He said investigators would examine how a single generator failure led to a national grid collapse. Lankadeepa separately reports that the minister told Parliament he also had doubts and questions about the incident. Daily Mirror reports that former energy minister Patali Champika Ranawaka called for an independent investigation, warning that the reasons could otherwise be concealed and alleging a government agenda involving rooftop solar.

EconomyNext reports that restoration began at 12:37 p.m. through Kotmale, the high-voltage transmission grid was restored by 4:58 p.m., and supply returned to all consumers by 9:56 p.m. It says priority was given to hospitals, water-treatment plants and airports, while out-of-sequence reconnections by external plants slowed restoration. Newswire reports that Norochcholai Unit 1 remains offline. Cabinet spokesperson Nalinda Jayatissa rejected opposition claims linking the incident to substandard coal, saying coal from a new shipment had been used since September 4; he said authorities hoped the plant would resume normal operations the following day. Newswire also reports the NSO has launched an internal inquiry and that electricity supply remains under pressure while the unit is offline.

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.