Sri Lanka’s President has urged electric vehicle (EV) owners to avoid charging their vehicles at night, warning that rising demand is putting significant pressure on the country’s power grid.
The government said that EV charging during nighttime hours is adding around 300 megawatts of additional demand, forcing authorities to run all available power generation sources to maintain supply.
A large portion of Sri Lanka’s electricity at night is generated using coal and diesel, which increases costs and undermines the environmental benefits typically associated with EVs.
Officials have asked EV users to shift charging to daytime hours, when the country has surplus electricity generated from solar power. However, Sri Lanka currently lacks large-scale battery storage systems, making it difficult to store excess daytime energy for use at night.
The appeal comes amid an ongoing energy and fuel crisis, worsened by global geopolitical tensions affecting oil supplies. The government has already introduced measures such as fuel rationing and reduced working days to conserve energy.
EV adoption in Sri Lanka has been rising steadily, with more than 10% of recently imported vehicles being fully electric, following the lifting of a vehicle import ban.
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