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. [1] [2] [3] The Ceylon Electricity Board announced that the cause of the blackout had not yet been determined, describing it as an unspecified failure. [4] [5] The Ministry of Power stated that a special committee had been appointed to investigate the root cause behind the blackout. [6]
The outage caused disruption in day-to-day activities of the public, including causing traffic congestion in Colombo due to malfunctioning of traffic signals and malfunctioning water supply services. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] Power was restored to the south of the island relatively early, due to it being powered by the Samanala Dam. [12]
Initially, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Power claimed that the outage occurred due to a failure in the Yugadanavi Power Plant. [13] 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. [14] 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. [15] The blackout further aggravated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. The blackout did not disrupt Bandaranaike International Airport, the main airport of the country, which was closed for months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals, offices and other infrastructure had backup power generators. [16]
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%). [17] Sri Lanka as a whole faced major nationwide blackout during March 2016 which lasted for over eight hours. [18] Localised regional power cuts are common in Sri Lanka although nationwide blackouts are rare.
A power outage is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user.
The National Grid is the high-voltage electric power transmission network serving Great Britain, connecting power stations and major substations, and ensuring that electricity generated anywhere on the grid can be used to satisfy demand elsewhere. The network serves the majority of Great Britain and some of the surrounding islands. It does not cover Northern Ireland, which is part of the Irish single electricity market.
A rolling blackout, also referred to as rota or rotational load shedding, rota disconnection, feeder rotation, or a rotating outage, is an intentionally engineered electrical power shutdown in which electricity delivery is stopped for non-overlapping periods of time over different parts of the distribution region. Rolling blackouts are a last-resort measure used by an electric utility company to avoid a total blackout of the power system.
The 2006 Auckland Blackout was a major electrical blackout in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, on 12 June 2006. It started at 08:30 local time, with most areas of Auckland regaining power by 14:45 local time. It affected some 230,000 customers and at least 700,000 people in and around the city.
The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and most parts of the Canadian province of Ontario on Thursday, August 14, 2003, beginning just after 4:10 p.m. EDT.
The 2008 Zanzibar Power blackout was an extensive power outage on Zanzibar, Tanzania.
The Ceylon Electricity Board - CEB, is the largest electricity company in Sri Lanka. With a market share of nearly 100%, it controls all major functions of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retailing in Sri Lanka. It is one of the only two on-grid electricity companies in the country; the other being Lanka Electricity Company (LECO). The company earned approximately Rs 204.7 billion in 2014, with a total of nearly 5.42 million consumer accounts. It is a government owned and controlled utility of Sri Lanka that takes care of the general energy facilities of the island. The Ministry of Power and Energy is the responsible ministry above the CEB. Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), established by an CEB Act No. 17 of 1969, is under legal obligation to develop and maintain an efficient, coordinated and economical system of Electricity supply in accordance with any Licenses issue.
The 2010 Chile blackout was an electric power outage that affected most of Chile on March 14, 2010. It began at 8:44 pm on Sunday and continued into the next day. The power was restored in a few hours in some areas, and by midnight in most areas, except in the Biobío Region.
Several major power outages have occurred in the country of Malaysia.
Two severe power outages affected most of northern and eastern India on 30 and 31 July 2012. The 30 July 2012 blackout affected over 400 million people and was briefly the largest power outage in history by number of people affected, beating the January 2001 blackout in Northern India. The blackout on 31 July is the largest power outage in history. The outage affected more than 620 million people, about 9% of the world population, or half of India's population, spread across 22 states in Northern, Eastern, and Northeast India. An estimated 32 gigawatts of generating capacity was taken offline. Of the affected population, 320 million initially had power, while the rest lacked direct access. Electric service was restored in the affected locations between 31 July and 1 August 2012.
In Ghana, dumsor is a persistent, irregular, and unpredictable electric power outage. The frequent Ghanaian blackouts are caused by power supply shortage. Ghanaian generating capacity by 2015 was 400-600 megawatts, less than Ghana needed. Ghanaian electricity distributors regularly shed load with rolling blackouts.
The South Australian blackout of 2016 was a widespread power outage in South Australia that occurred as a result of storm damage to electricity transmission infrastructure on 28 September 2016. The cascading failure of the electricity transmission network resulted in almost the entire state losing its electricity supply, affecting 850,000 SA customers. Kangaroo Island did not lose its supply, as the Kangaroo Island power station had been built to supply the island for the contingency of a failure in the power cable under the Backstairs Passage.
On 15 August 2017 at 4:52 p.m. NST, massive blackout hit northern half of Taiwan, affecting 6.68 million households. Electricity rationing was implemented at 6:00 p.m. and the blackout fully ended at 9:40 p.m.
The 2019 Sri Lanka electricity crisis was a crisis which happened nearly a month from 18 March to 10 April 2019 faced by Sri Lanka caused by a severe drought that depleted water levels at hydroelectric plants. Sri Lanka experienced rolling blackouts for three to five hours per day except on Sundays in all parts of the island nation at different time schedules that started from 24 March 2019 to present. This is regarded as one of the worst blackouts confronted in Sri Lanka since 2016 and the longest ever blackout recorded in history of the country. However it was revealed that the main electricity providing institution Ceylon Electricity Board had restricted the power supply to almost all regions of the country without proper prior notice and implemented a time schedule unofficially from 24 March 2019. However the Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy revealed that it didn't grant and approve permission to CEB to impose power cuts.
On 16 June 2019, a large-scale power outage struck most of Argentina, all of Uruguay, and parts of Paraguay, leaving an estimated total of 48 million people without electrical supply.
This page lists notable events that took place during the year 2020 in Sri Lanka.
In February 2021, the state of Texas suffered a major power crisis, which came about during three severe winter storms sweeping across the United States on February 10–11, 13–17, and 15–20. The storms triggered the worst energy infrastructure failure in Texas state history, leading to shortages of water, food, and heat. More than 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without power, some for several days. At least 246 people were killed directly or indirectly, with some estimates as high as 702 killed as a result of the crisis.
The 2023 Pakistan blackout was a power outage that occurred across Pakistan on 23 January 2023. This was the second major grid breakdown in Pakistan in 2 years. In majority of the regions, the blackout lasted more than 12 hours while in some areas it lasted even longer than 12 hours.
The 2022 Bangladesh blackout was a power outage that occurred across Bangladesh on October 4, 2022. The blackout lasted for almost 7 hours.
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