Electricity tariffs will not change for the final quarter of 2026. The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka has decided against a revision, leaving third-quarter rates in place until the end of the year — even though the cost data before it showed the cost of supplying electricity going up.
The Commission reached the decision after considering updated cost data and the views received during the mandatory public consultation, the Daily Mirror reported at 3.15 a.m. on Wednesday.
For consumers, the practical effect is simple: the rates billed since the third quarter carry through to 31 December.
What the 2.88% figure actually measures
This decision closes a process this desk has followed since early November, and it also sharpens a number that earlier coverage carried loosely.
The cost data the National System Operator first submitted indicated “a 2.88 per cent increase in the cost of supplying electricity during the final quarter,” according to Wednesday’s filing. That is a statement about costs, not a tariff application — a distinction the earlier reporting did not draw. When this desk first reported the figure on 4 November, and again on 5 November, 2.88% was described as the revision the system operator had requested. Wednesday’s account attaches the same number to the underlying cost movement instead.
The two readings are not interchangeable, and no filing reconciles them. This article states the figure as the Commission’s own filing now characterises it.
The regulator’s counter-figure of 1.46% — the preliminary revision it said was supportable — does not appear in Wednesday’s account at all. It has simply been overtaken: the determination is zero.
The cost data arrived seven weeks late
One fact in Wednesday’s filing has not appeared in any earlier report, and it is the most pointed thing in it.
The National System Operator submitted its initial cost estimates on 6 October, although the submission was due before 17 August 2026. Updated cost data followed on 9 November — two days before the determination.
That is a delay of roughly seven weeks on a statutory submission governing a quarter that had already begun. No reason for the delay is given, and the filing records no consequence attaching to it.
What the consultation examined
The public consultation covered estimated generation costs and the generation mix, energy costs, fuel prices, generation capacity costs, battery storage system capacity costs, adjustments for past revenue surpluses or deficits, the excess revenue of the Electricity Distribution Company, and the proposed percentage of any revision.
The legal framework is set out in the filing. Under Section 29 of the Sri Lanka Electricity Act No. 36 of 2024, the system operator must submit estimated supply costs for future periods to the Commission for review, and the Commission determines tariffs after examining that data and obtaining public views. The consultation itself was held under Section 17 of the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka Act No. 35 of 2002 together with Section 29.
How the quarter was argued
The determination lands roughly where the system operator itself ended up.
Having opened by seeking a rise, the operator reversed position at the 5 November stakeholder consultation and said no increase was needed for October–December, citing improved reservoir storage and forecasts of above-normal rainfall under prevailing El Niño conditions. That reversal was reported by The Island on 6 November in a filing by Ifham Nizam — a date outside this article’s source window, so it is cited here in prose rather than listed as a source.
That same report recorded Power and Energy Minister Anura Karunathilaka stating that the government would “under no circumstances” transfer losses arising from the recent nationwide power outage, or related expenditure, to electricity consumers. Wednesday’s filing does not mention the outage, and nothing in it indicates whether outage-related costs featured in the data the Commission examined.
The consultation itself was contested before it was held. This desk reported on 6 November that a minister questioned why PUCSL was holding a public hearing when no tariff increase was being sought.
The third quarter in a row without a rise
The decision continues an unbroken run. The Commission left tariffs unchanged for the third quarter in August, and ruled out an increase for the following quarter in September.
Not reported
The filing does not say what the Commission concluded about the 2.88% cost increase — whether it accepted the figure, and if so how a documented cost rise is absorbed without a tariff change. It does not identify who bears that gap: the generators, the distribution entities, or the Treasury.
It gives no rupee figure at any consumption band, no indication of what the decision means for the sector’s finances, and no date from which the next quarterly review begins. It does not state whether the late submission has any consequence for the system operator, nor whether the Commission commented on it.
Nothing is reported on the Ceylon Electricity Board’s successor distribution entities’ position, on consumer organisations’ representations at the consultation, or on how many members of the public took part.
A note on sourcing: this article rests on a single verified newsroom. The determination had not been carried by other verified outlets at the time of writing; searches of EconomyNext, NewsFirst, Hiru, Daily FT and The Island returned only coverage of the earlier consultation stages.
