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. The Ministry of Power appointed a special committee to investigate the root cause behind the blackout.
Development
The outage caused disruption in day-to-day activities of the public, including causing
traffic congestion
Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s, resulting in m ...
in
Colombo
Colombo, ( ; , ; , ), is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. The Colombo metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 within the municipal limits. It is the ...
due to malfunctioning of traffic signals and malfunctioning water supply services. Power was restored to the south of the island relatively early, due to it being powered by the
Samanala Dam.
Initially, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Power claimed that the outage occurred due to a failure in the
Yugadanavi Power Plant. 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. 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. The blackout further aggravated the impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic in the country. The blackout did not disrupt
Bandaranaike International Airport
Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) (commonly known as Colombo International Airport, Colombo–Bandaranaike International Airport, and locally as Katunayake International Airport) (IATA airport code, IATA: CMB, ICAO airport code, ICAO: VC ...
, the main airport of the country, which was closed for months due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. Hospitals, offices and other infrastructure had backup power generators.
Background
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%). Sri Lanka as a whole faced major nationwide blackout during March 2016 which lasted for over eight hours. Localised regional power cuts are common in Sri Lanka although nationwide blackouts are rare.
Technical description
The blackout began when a three-phase
fault at
Kerawalapitiya thermal power plant took an unusually long time to disconnect from the Sri Lankan electrical system. During that time, the short circuit depressed voltages at the nearby
Lakvijaya thermal power plant; both plants ultimately isolated from the Sri Lankan grid to prevent equipment damage. The missing generation induced a very rapid and severe decline in
utility frequency
The utility frequency, (power) line frequency (American English) or mains frequency (British English) is the nominal frequency of the oscillations of alternating current (AC) in a wide area synchronous grid transmitted from a power station to t ...
that the network's protective devices could not arrest.
See also
*
2019 Sri Lanka electricity crisis
*
Power outages in Sri Lanka
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sri Lankan blackouts, 2020
Blackouts
2020 in Sri Lanka
2020 industrial disasters
August 2020 in Sri Lanka
Power outages in Sri Lanka