⚡ Parliamentary Committee Urges Energy Sector Co-ordination After Island-Wide Blackout

• Grid Failure Trigger: The total system collapse on 17 Oct at 11:43 AM was caused by a severe imbalance—Norochcholai coal plant Unit 1 suddenly dropped from 187 MW to 5 MW, while 1,700 MW of rooftop solar was active on the grid (out of 529 MW coal total supply). • Interlocking Issues: Sectoral Oversight Committee (SOC) directed the PUCSL, National System Operator (NSO), and utilities to end siloed operations. Uncontrolled injections from rooftop solar complicate restoration as owners failed to manually disconnect systems when requested. • Demand Shift: PUCSL data indicates peak electricity demand has shifted from night to day due to expanding commercial activity, impacting national tariff structures and grid capacity planning. • Historical Context: Marks Sri Lanka's second major failure in under 2 years (following the 9 Feb 2025 outage caused by low system inertia from high solar energy contribution). A final technical evaluation report has been requested.