The Sri Lankan energy minister Anura Karunathilaka. File photograph
Sri Lanka plans to change how it pays households and businesses for rooftop solar power, the Sri Lankan energy minister Anura Karunathilaka has said, as the government pushes ahead with a renewable energy expansion that has met resistance from Tamils whose land and coast have been taken for wind and solar projects.
Karunathilaka said existing arrangements, under which private solar producers feed surplus electricity to the grid during the day and draw an equivalent amount at night without paying, were financially unsustainable. Solar generation peaks when demand is low, while electricity costs more to supply at night, and the additional cost was "borne by the state", he said . The government would propose a new model that was fair to both producers and consumers.
The energy ministry scrapped net metering for new connections last month.
The government aims to raise solar capacity to about 4,400 megawatts by 2029, a 388 per cent increase on 2024, and plans to expand battery storage. Karunathilaka said the grid, investment and infrastructure were not yet sufficient to replace coal and naphtha, but that Sri Lanka hoped to raise the share of renewable energy in electricity generation to between 90 and 95 per cent over the next 10 to 15 years.
Residents of Mannar protest against wind power projects on the island in November 2025. File photograph
Much of the expansion is planned for the North-East. In Mannar, residents staged a 105-day protest against wind farms on the island, warning of damage to fishing livelihoods and the environment. The Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake halted new wind projects there, but the government has pressed ahead with projects already approved, despite Tamil objections.
In Trincomalee, farmers at Muthunagar have protested against the seizure of their land for solar projects, and India is building a solar power plant at Sampur , on land from which Tamils were displaced.
Muthunagar farmers protest against the seizure of their land for solar projects. File photograph
A Greenpeace study this month found that fishing communities in the North-East had been shut out of decisions over their land and seas.
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