The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL) stated that it is currently studying the report prepared by the expert committee which looked into the islandwide power outage on 9 February.

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) stated on Wednesday (23) that the report prepared by an independent expert committee which investigated the incident had been referred to the PUCSL.

When queried by The Daily Morning as to whether the PUCSL would take any action such as directing the CEB to implement action recommended by the said committee, the PUCSL's Director of Communications, Jayanath Herath said that they were still studying the report. "The initial report that we received from the CEB was not readable enough. For instance, the graphs in it were not clear. Therefore, we informed the CEB to provide us with the report's soft copy. We have received it now, and are studying it."

The Daily Morning also queried the CEB Chairperson, Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya as to whether they had set any timeline for the implementation of the actions recommended by the said committee, but, there was no response.

According to a statement issued by the CEB, the expert committee had confirmed that the countrywide blackout was primarily caused by low system inertia — resulting from unusually high solar power contribution — leading to low grid stability. On the day of the outage, solar photovoltaic sources supplied over half of Sri Lanka’s electricity, stated the CEB. "The incident began at the 33 kilovolt Panadura Grid Substation, triggering a voltage drop during a low-demand ‘Sunny Sunday.’ With traditional power plants running at minimal levels, the grid lacked the inertia needed to absorb the shock, leading to cascading failures and a total blackout."

The said committee had recommended urgent steps to strengthen grid reliability, including deploying battery energy storage systems, using synchronous condensers, and modifying generators for added support. It also advised installing real-time inertia indicators on control systems (mimic boards) for better grid management. To prevent future outages and enhance grid reliability, the said committee had also recommended the urgent implementation of measures outlined in the Long-Term Generation Expansion Plan and the Long-Term Transmission Plan. 

The CEB had stated that the said committee’s findings aligned with their original statement on 18 February, dismissing claims that the blackout was caused by a defect at the Victoria Power Station.