February 10, Colombo (LNW): The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) has announced that scheduled power outages will continue across Sri Lanka on Monday (10), and Tuesday (11).
These outages are expected to last for one and a half hours during each of the two days, between the hours of 3:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., and will be implemented island-wide.
The electricity supply disruptions will be staggered across different zones to ensure a more manageable distribution of available power.
These temporary outages are part of ongoing efforts to balance the grid following a series of unforeseen technical issues that have affected the national power system.
A significant event unfolded on Sunday, 9th February, when a nationwide power failure struck at approximately 11:15 a.m.
The outage, initially caused by an incident at the Panadura grid substation, was triggered by a monkey entering the facility, resulting in an imbalance that knocked out the system.
This disruption left the entire island without power for a period of time.
The restoration process was slow and faced complications due to the lower electricity demand typical on a Sunday. However, by 6:00 p.m., most areas had their power restored.
Unfortunately, just as power began to return, another problem emerged at the Norochcholai Coal Power Plant, where an automatic safety protocol led to the disconnection of all three generators.
This further intensified the already critical power shortfall, as the national grid lost an additional 900 megawatts.
By late evening, demand for electricity began to rise, especially as people returned home from work. This led to more regional blackouts, and the CEB was forced to draw additional power from thermal plants to fill the gap.
Despite the team’s best efforts, the entire island did not experience a full restoration of electricity until 9:45 p.m.
In light of these ongoing challenges, the CEB has confirmed that it will take around four days to fully restart the three generators at the Norochcholai plant. Until then, power cuts will continue as the plant is gradually brought back online and integrated back into the national grid.
The CEB assures the public that efforts are underway to resolve the power crisis and stabilise the supply as soon as possible.
Visit here to see the time periods and zones for the power cuts scheduled by the CEB: https://lankanewsweb.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CEB-Press-Release-2025-02-10.pdf
