The Hon. Ravindra Bandara

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, the Opposition’s Motion is important, but it spreads misconceptions—that we plan to discourage rooftop and renewables, raise bills by 10%, or switch off solar. None of that is Government policy. We reduced tariffs by 20%, and about 30% for industry. There is no plan to remove rooftop solar from the grid. We proceed with a coherent plan to add 2,000 MW of renewables.

¶ 02 Why did the system become unbalanced? Solar output peaks in daytime and drops at night; sudden cloud cover changes output. Without a smart grid and visibility, the Control Room cannot precisely forecast distributed generation. The answer is planned development: smart grids, smart meters, storage. This is a National People’s Power Government; we are not prey to conspiracies. Don’t forget, much of today’s instability stems from past unplanned additions and procurement. Some issued EOIs for 3,000 MW without lawful process, then their own Act nullified them. We have appointed a committee to resolve such issues.

¶ 03 In the short term, we may temporarily curtail ground‑mounted output at high‑risk moments to keep the system stable—this is not about removing rooftops. We are encouraging industry to shift some operations to holidays, with lower tariffs, to utilize daytime peaks. We will promote behind‑the‑meter batteries so households can serve night load, while building utility‑scale storage and pumped storage. A 600 MW pumped storage at Maha Oya is being advanced and will be expedited. We are also adopting AI‑assisted forecasting to handle cloud transients.

¶ 04 We can, from wind alone, generate multiples of our need—studies (e.g., NREL) show very large potential. With interconnection, surplus can be exported; that’s why we pursue power exchange frameworks with India. Under the President’s vision, we are on a clear path. The recent national outage arose because the system was not modernized earlier; we cannot deploy smart grids and storage in four months, but we are doing the groundwork now.

¶ 05 To conclude: renewables will not be curtailed or removed; we will stabilize the grid through synchronous support, storage, smart systems, and fair operational measures; and we will continue the tariff reductions and investment climate improvements already under way.