Those who installed solar panels on their roofs have been left helpless without being paid.

The Sustainable Energy Protectors' Association states that the solar panel installation industry in the country has suffered a severe collapse due to the non-payment of arrears to a large number of solar power system owners across the island. Out of approximately 130,000 solar panel owners across the island, over seventy-five percent have not yet been paid by the authorities, and those who invested in these projects, even selling their lands and vehicles, are currently in a state of severe helplessness.

Mr. Darshana Liyanasekara, President of the Sustainable Energy Protectors' Association, stated that due to this crisis, half of the six hundred local companies involved in the solar panel installation sector in the country, approximately three hundred companies, have completely shut down. Currently, nearly eighty percent of the approximately twenty thousand employees who worked for these defunct companies have lost their livelihoods and jobs.

The President points out that while renewable energy industrialists are facing such difficulties, the new feed-in tariff scheme announced by the Public Utilities Commission has further pushed the industry into an abyss. He alleges that although the government claims to be working to uplift the renewable energy sector, under the proposed tariffs, the payment for some categories has increased by only two rupees, and this is a fraud intended to deceive the public, not a relief for the industry.

Mr. Darshana Liyanasekara further stated that authorities are working to pay private diesel power plant owners, who supply about thirty-five percent of the country's total electricity demand, on time and without any arrears, and that even from the limited imported diesel supply, priority is given to these power plants. It is a regrettable situation that the government is encouraging and maintaining diesel power plants, which drain a large amount of foreign exchange from the country, while allowing local, environmentally friendly, and low-cost solar energy to be destroyed.