Sri Lanka's energy authorities have a message for residents struggling with the cost of living: consider turning off your fridge.
The Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority has asked the public to reduce electricity consumption between 6pm and 10pm on weekdays, when demand peaks and the grid comes under strain. SLSEA Chairman Wijendra Bandara outlined the appeal, asking residents to avoid charging electric vehicles and to reschedule laundry and ironing to weekends or daytime hours on weekdays.
"We ask people to cut down electricity consumption during night-peak hours, typically from 6 pm to 10 pm on weekdays," Bandara said.
He went further. "There's no harm in switching off the fridge for a few hours," he said.
Sri Lanka is already navigating a four-day working week, fuel rationing, two rounds of fuel price hikes in a single week, and a global oil supply crisis triggered by war in West Asia.
The explanation offered by officials is that the evening shortfall is not a shortage of power so much as a shortage of the right kind of power at the right time. During daylight hours, the grid receives adequate solar energy, so there is no immediate problem. At night, however, thermal power generation is required to fill the gap, and that is where the trouble lies.
Officials confirmed that the purchase of substandard coal had reduced output from coal-fired power plants, forcing greater reliance on diesel generation at night — the very fuel that Sri Lanka is now rationing at the pump.
The situation is a compounding one. Sri Lanka already introduced a QR code-based fuel rationing system last week as a precautionary measure against global supply disruptions. A four-day working week for public sector institutions, schools, and universities has been introduced indefinitely. Fuel prices have risen by around 25 per cent twice in the space of a week — price levels last seen during the catastrophic 2022 economic collapse, when the country declared its first sovereign debt default.
The coal problem is also not new. Sri Lanka's coal-fired Norochcholai power plant has a long history of operational difficulties and has been a persistent source of criticism from energy analysts. The admission that substandard coal purchases have now reduced plant output points to procurement failures that predate the West Asia conflict.