COLOMBO — Traffic lights stood dead in Colombo on Saturday and a roadside stall sat with its lights off as Sri Lanka’s national grid failed, leaving the state-owned grid operator to ask households with rooftop solar panels to switch them off.
The government’s information department put the outage down to system instability, Anadolu Agency reported. Energy Minister Anura Karunathilake said a breakdown at the Upper Kotmale Power Station was suspected of causing it.
The National System Operator, or NSO, later denied reports of power plant breakdowns, according to the same Anadolu report. It said the hydropower plants that were running stayed online to help restore supply, and that the Norochcholai coal plant was shut down under standard procedures, not because of a mechanical failure. In the reports TEH read, that left a suspected plant fault, a denial of plant breakdowns and no finding on what had destabilised the grid.
Restoration came in stages. Anadolu Agency reported that electricity returned area by area, with parts of Colombo, Gampaha, Galle and Badulla regaining supply, and that the NSO expected the national grid to be fully restored by about 6:30 pm local time. Later on Saturday, Xinhua reported that the NSO said the transmission system was fully restored, with supply back in most areas and expected to return to normal across the country soon.
The request to rooftop solar owners is the part that outlasted the darkness. The NSO asked them to disconnect their installations until further notice to help stabilize the grid, Xinhua reported, and said it would issue further instructions as the electricity system returned to normal operation. Households that generate their own power were being told to hold off until that word came.
It is not the island’s first nationwide failure. In February 2025, Anadolu reported, Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody said, according to local media, that a monkey had come into contact with a grid transformer at a substation in Panadura, and power was fully restored by 9:45 pm.
TEH has not seen a final finding from the NSO or the energy ministry on what destabilised the grid this time. In the reports TEH read, solar households were still waiting for the word to reconnect, and the cause was still a suspicion.
