Sri Lanka will add close to 960 MW of battery energy storage by the end of 2027, Ports, Civil Aviation and Energy Minister Anura Karunathilaka said, as the grid struggles to carry a daytime solar surplus into the evening peak.

The Minister was speaking at the ceremony connecting a 10 MW / 40 MWh battery system at Anuradhapura to the national grid on Friday, Daily FT reported. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake attended.

The gap the batteries are meant to close

Karunathilaka put the arithmetic plainly. Sri Lanka now generates close to 3,000 MW of solar power during the day against average daytime demand of about 2,800 MW — a surplus. Demand then rises to roughly 3,100 MW at night, when the solar is gone.

Under El Niño conditions, he said, forecasts indicate night-time demand could climb further by February, Daily Mirror reported.

“The challenge has been that we have not had sufficient capacity to store the excess solar power generated during the day,” the Minister said. Without storage, surplus midday generation is curtailed while the evening peak is met by costlier fossil-fuel plant.

How the 960 MW breaks down

The figures given to the two outlets reconcile exactly:

Those four tranches sum to 960 MW, the figure the Minister used. Daily Mirror reports the three larger projects are expected to be integrated by the first half of 2027; Daily FT dates the full 960 MW to the end of 2027. The outlets are not reconciled on that point.

A question this desk left open is now answered

Sri Lanka’s first grid-scale standalone storage programme awarded 16 projects nationwide through international competitive bidding. WindForce PLC and Vidullanka PLC together secured 13 of the 16, under a 15-year Build, Own and Operate framework, Daily FT reported. At 10 MW apiece, 13 projects is 130 MW / 520 MWh — and 16 is the 160 MW the Minister described.

That settles a point this desk got wrong on 17 September. Reporting then named Storex (Private) Limited as the Anuradhapura developer, and we wrote that WindForce’s separately-reported project “remains separately unaccounted for” and that the two “should not be conflated.”

They are the same programme. Storex is the joint venture through which WindForce and Vidullanka are building it — Vidullanka holds 49 percent, WindForce the rest, EconomyNext reported from the companies’ Colombo Stock Exchange filings. Twelve facilities sit under Storex; a thirteenth, at Vavunathivu, is held through a separate joint venture, Solar Universe (Pvt) Ltd.

What the systems do

Each unit runs a four-hour discharge, supplying fast-frequency response, peak load shifting and voltage regulation to the National System Operator. Vidullanka told the exchange this “significantly enhances grid absorption capacity for intermittent solar energy while minimizing renewable curtailment,” and that the plants earn structured capacity charges — revenue that does not depend on weather, unlike the group’s hydro portfolio.

The remaining Storex systems are at “advanced stages of completion” and will be commissioned progressively; Daily FT reports Storex expects them connected within two to three months.

WindForce also commissioned a 5 MW floating solar plant through its subsidiary Diyajanani, generating roughly 9 GWh a year. The company said the two projects lift its total renewable generation capacity to about 268 MW.

Not reported

None of the accounts gives the cost of the Anuradhapura system or of the 960 MW programme, names the three bidders that won the other 16-project slots, or says where the remaining 12 systems are sited. Nor is it stated what the 400 MW, 250 MW and 150 MW tenders are expected to cost, or how they relate to the separate 250 MW / 1,000 MWh standalone tender opened in July across 25 grid substations.

Sources