The Cabinet of Ministers has approved a project to install 300,000 smart electricity meters fitted with Time-of-Use (TOU) billing, in what the Department of Government Information described as a step towards modernising the national grid.
TOU metering charges consumers different rates depending on when electricity is drawn, giving households and businesses a financial reason to shift demand away from peak evening hours. The 300,000 units represent the first installation at this scale on the distribution network.
The project will be implemented by Electricity Distribution Lanka (Pvt) Ltd over a two-year period, following a submission by the Minister of Power and Energy.
Funding comes from the unspent balance of a US$15 million concessional loan facility from the Asian Development Bank, secured to support projects complementing Sri Lanka’s renewable energy transition. Cabinet first approved that borrowing on 21 October 2024; Lanka Business News reported the facility was taken under the ADB’s Small Expenditure Financing Facility.
At the Cabinet meeting of 3 September 2025, US$2.5 million of the total was earmarked for detailed designs and procurement documents for the Maha Oya Pumped Storage Hydropower Development Project. With that allocation now committed, the remaining US$12.5 million is directed to the smart meter programme.
Lanka Business News reported the approval was taken at the Cabinet meeting of 24 August 2026 and remains subject to formal adoption at the next meeting — a procedural step the Daily Mirror’s account did not mention.
Neither report named a supplier, a tender timetable, or which distribution regions would receive the meters first.
