All three units of Norochcholai Lakvijaya coal power plant shut down today as a result of an under frequency in the electrical grid system caused by several power lines tripping.
Lakvijaya will now be unavailable for at least three to four days, which is how long it takes to restart the three units once they go into a complete shutdown, authoritative Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) sources said. It was not immediately clear why the plants did not go into standby mode.
Today’s countrywide power failure started around 11.133am, trigged by “something happening” at the 132/33kV Pandura substation. Energy Minister Kumara Jayakody was widely quoted as saying a monkey had caused the initial power failure. (It was also reported that “a clash between monkeys” was the reason).
The CEB, however, refused to reveal the initial cause of the Panadura-Matugama line tripping. The official spokesman said they will “investigate the reason and let you know”. Chairman Tilak Siymbalapitiya—when asked how many monkeys were involved—said, “If any, it will come in the CEB’s detailed report.”
Photos received by The Sunday Times do, however, show a dead monkey at the site. But engineers refused to attribute the trigger of today’s power failure to primates until it could be conclusively proven.
The incident at the Panadura substation caused the Panadura-Matugama line to trip after which the Laxapana-Balangoda line tripped, followed by Lakvijaya, authoritative sources said. It is also unclear why a monkey or an isolated incident at a 33kv line should lead to a cascading series of failures that brought the whole grid down.
By 4.30pm, CEB said officially that 80 percent of grid supply had been restored.
Meanwhile, the Ceylon Electricity Board Engineers’ Union (CEBEU) issued a statement saying the main cause of the power failure was identified “as the low electricity demand on Sunday afternoon and relatively unstable solar power making up a large percentage of the total electricity generation”. However, this situation needs to be confirmed through a proper investigation, it said.
A sudden power outage occurred near the 33kV bus bar of the Panadura grid substation, the statement said. This caused an imbalance in the national power system, “which was unstable due to low electricity demand and high solar power generation”. The automatic emergency breakdown management system then failed, resulting in a countrywide breakdown.
The CEB and Energy Ministry are working together to expedite projects related to battery storage facilities and pump storage to take necessary measures to prevent such power outages, in future, it said.
A damaged insulator at the Panadura substation.
The Government is finalising a list of names to be posted as heads of Sri Lanka’s missions abroad with ex-Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya assuming the position of Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.
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