Seven-Hour Blackout Hits All of Sri Lanka; Government Orders Inquiry Into Grid Failure
A total failure of Sri Lanka's national power grid cut electricity across the entire island for about seven hours Saturday. Power returned in stages by Saturday evening, and the government has ordered an expert inquiry into the cause.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka restored power to most of the country by Saturday evening after a failure of the national electricity grid cut supply to the entire island for about seven hours, according to the Daily Express of Sri Lanka.
The blackout began around 11 a.m. local time Saturday, the National System Operator (NSO) said. The operator, the company that took over grid duties from the Ceylon Electricity Board, said the grid suffered a total system failure and that restoration work began at once.
Ports, Civil Aviation and Energy Minister Anura Karunathilaka said the government will appoint a high-powered committee of experts to find the exact cause, check for technical or operational faults, and determine whether the failure could have been avoided.
“Our immediate concern was restoring the power supply. We will do everything possible to prevent a recurrence of such power outages,” the minister said, expressing regret for the trouble caused to the public.
Hydropower plant suspected as trigger
Officials have not confirmed the cause. Sources familiar with the generation system told the Daily Express they suspect a failure at one of the generating units at the Upper Kotmale Hydropower Plant, in the country’s central hills, may have set off the breakdown. The minister named the same plant as a possible source of the trouble.
Shortly after the outage began, the NSO asked owners of rooftop solar photovoltaic systems to disconnect their panels from the national grid until further notice. The request was meant to make the step-by-step restoration of the grid safer, because uncontrolled power flowing back from solar systems can complicate the work.
The blackout disrupted water supplies, internet service and mobile phone networks across the country, according to a NewsCord summary of coverage by Anadolu Ajansi and The Hindu. The water supply agency warned residents against wasting water while pumps stood idle.
Renewable power share in focus
The failure comes as Sri Lanka takes an ever larger share of its electricity from renewable sources. Installed solar capacity has passed 3,000 megawatts, while daytime demand runs between 2,000 and 2,500 megawatts, the Daily Express reported. Official data showed renewables, including hydropower and private renewable generation, supplied 64.4 percent of the country’s electricity in May 2025, up from 48.3 percent a year earlier.
Sri Lanka has set a target of 70 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and plans to expand solar capacity to nearly 4,400 megawatts within three years.
A similar islandwide blackout struck in February 2025, when the grid struggled to recover from a disturbance during a period of high rooftop solar output. Electricity took more than six hours to restore on that occasion. The Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers’ Union has warned that large volumes of rooftop solar generation could set off cascading failures when the grid cannot absorb sudden swings in supply and demand.
Reporting based on coverage by the Daily Express (Sri Lanka), NewsCord, Anadolu Ajansi and The Hindu.
