The Hon. Kumara Jayakody

¶ 01 Mr. Speaker, the fundamental reason was that, under constraint, the system became imbalanced, and frequency—controlled by Victoria—deviated significantly from 50 Hz, causing unit trips as designed to protect the system. The continuing frequency drop caused the blackout. We are implementing immediate measures recommended, including ensuring that simultaneous diaphragm trips are avoided, and enabling soft shutdowns to minimize downtime to under 24 hours; otherwise it could take about four days. We are pursuing short-, medium- and long-term actions. We are also improving system management, especially visibility of variable solar during daytime at the System Control Centre. Development work is underway, including battery storage and pumped storage solutions. We have called tenders for 160 MW of battery storage. CEB must fund via its own resources (consumer revenues), and external financing takes time. We will bring long-term stability with global best practices.