The government has urged the public to reduce fuel consumption rather than rely on price controls alone, as Sri Lanka shifts toward cleaner energy sources, Minister of Ports and Civil Aviation and Minister of Energy Anura Karunathilaka said at Muthurajawela.
Controlling fuel prices was not by itself sufficient to strengthen the country’s energy security, he said, the Daily Mirror reported.
“As a country, we must focus not only on controlling fuel prices but also on controlling fuel consumption. The public also has a major responsibility in this regard,” Karunathilaka said.
He said changing patterns of energy consumption mattered particularly to achieving greater energy security, and urged the public to avoid periods of high energy demand, make greater use of electricity, and shift toward fuel-efficient vehicles and especially electric vehicles.
The remarks were made at the commencement of construction of new petroleum infrastructure at Muthurajawela — the JET A-1 aviation fuel pipeline and storage tank project LankaNewz reported on separately.
The solar figure does not match the last one
Karunathilaka said the government expected to add 1,200 megawatts of solar capacity to the national grid by 2029 as part of its renewable expansion.
That figure sits well below the one the same minister gave six days earlier. At a Colombo news briefing on September 26, Karunathilaka said grid-connected solar capacity would rise by a further 4,585.7 MW by 2029, with 1,392 MW planned for 2027 alone — figures LankaNewz reported at the time, along with the arithmetic gaps already present in that briefing.
The two statements are not reconcilable from the reporting available. Thursday’s 1,200 MW is roughly a quarter of the September 26 total and smaller than the single-year 2027 target the minister gave then. The Daily Mirror does not note the discrepancy, does not say whether 1,200 MW refers to a narrower category — ground-mounted projects only, say, or additions from a particular year — and gives no baseline the figure is measured from.
Readers should treat 1,200 MW by 2029 as what the minister said on Thursday, not as a revision of the earlier target. A number in this range has also previously attached to a different technology: a 1,200 MW battery storage plan to cover evening peak demand was reported in July 2026, and battery capacity is counted separately from solar generation in the government’s own breakdowns.
Context
Sri Lanka’s solar policy has been contested through 2026. The September 26 briefing was itself a rebuttal — Karunathilaka was rejecting as “entirely baseless” industry claims that the government was throttling rooftop solar, after complaints that new directives put sector jobs at risk. Our reporting then found the published capacity figures did not add up across outlets, with ground-mounted solar given as 534 MW by two newsrooms and 370 MW by a third.
Not reported
The Daily Mirror does not say what share of the 1,200 MW is rooftop against ground-mounted, what the current installed solar base is, or how the target relates to the renewable programme announced in September. It gives no cost, no procurement route and no interim milestones. It also does not report any measure the government will use to reduce consumption beyond asking the public to change its habits — no incentive, tariff change, efficiency standard or EV support scheme is mentioned.
One dating note. The Daily Mirror’s copy, published at 5:32 pm on October 2, places the Muthurajawela remarks “yesterday”. The same paper’s own report on the ceremony states it was inaugurated today (Oct. 2), under the patronage of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. LankaNewz has used October 2 as the date of the event.
This report rests on a single verified newsroom. No account of the minister’s remarks had appeared on Hiru News, EconomyNext, NewsFirst, the Island, Daily FT or news.lk at the time of writing.
