The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) Thursday announced the settlement of about Rs. 4 bn. accumulated arrears due to its rooftop solar customers saying all dues up to April 2023 has now been paid.

A news release said that during 2022 CEB was unable to settle payments on this account due to severe financial difficulties faced mainly due to non-availability of a cost reflective tariff. However, with the implementation of such a tariff on Feb 15, they had managed to commenced clearing these accounts from internal cash generation and raising loans from financial institutions.

This was despite settlement of previous debt is not included in the revised tariff. Electricity customers of Sri Lanka has installed about 700 MW of rooftop solar energy systems, sizable against the day peak of the country being only 2,700 MW including rooftop solar, the CEB news release said.

“Roof solar has contributed immensely to increase renewable energy share of the country. CEB always promotes rooftop solar systems through their innovative business models of net metering, net accounting, Net Plus and Net Plus Plus,” it added.

“We invite all our customers to participate with the CEB Renewable Energy drive with the installation of roof top solar systems,” the release concluded.