Sri Lanka schedules 3-hour power cuts from Aug 16 to 19

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka has imposed power cuts up to three hours from Tuesday August 16 to Friday August 19  after a generator at the Norochcholai coal power plant had a sudden breakdown, the Public Utilities Commission (PUCSL) has said.

All groups (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W) will have lose power for one hour and 40 minutes during daytime another one hour and 20minutes at night.

Group CC will have a 2 hour and 30 minute power cut from 6.00am to 8.30am.

Board of Investment (BOI) industrial groups (M, N, O, Y and Z) will have 3 hour cuts from 5.30am to 8.30am.

Currently only Unit 3 of the Norochcholai power plant is in operation. Unit 2 is undergoing scheduled maintenance, and repairs on the broken down Unit 1 will take up to a fortnight.

The sudden breakdown meant that power cut durations which were decreased from 1 hour to 1 hour and 20 minutes due to availability of hydroelectricity, had to be increased.  (Colombo/Aug15/2022)