The 2020 Sri Lankan blackouts were a series of electrical blackouts that occurred on 17 August 2020, beginning around 12.30 pm SLST ( UTC+5:30) and lasting over seven hours. The nationwide blackouts occurred due to a transmission technical failure at the Kerawalapitiya Grid-Sub station. [1] [2] [3] The Ceylon Electricity Board announced that the cause of the blackout had not yet been determined, describing it as an unspecified failure. [4] [5] The Ministry of Power stated that a special committee had been appointed to investigate the root cause behind the blackout. [6]
The outage caused disruption in day-to-day activities of the public, including causing traffic congestion in Colombo due to malfunctioning of traffic signals and malfunctioning water supply services. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] Power was restored to the south of the island relatively early, due to it being powered by the Samanala Dam. [12]
Initially, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Power claimed that the outage occurred due to a failure in the Yugadanavi Power Plant. [13] The Minister of Power Dullas Alahapperuma later stated that the outage would be resolved within a space of two hours but the restoration process was delayed for hours due to cascading failures. [14] The power was restored in most parts of the country including Colombo at around 8.30 pm and was regarded as the worst nationwide blackout faced by the country since 2016. [15] The blackout further aggravated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. The blackout did not disrupt Bandaranaike International Airport, the main airport of the country, which was closed for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals, offices and other infrastructure had backup power generators. [16]
Sri Lanka's electricity demand is currently met by thermal power stations (54.59%), major hydroelectric power stations (33.50%), and wind farms (2.12%), small hydro facilities (8.01%) and other renewables such as solar (1.78%). [17] Sri Lanka as a whole faced major nationwide blackout during March 2016 which lasted for over eight hours. [18] Localised regional power cuts are common in Sri Lanka although nationwide blackouts are rare.