The questions people ask before they call

Is KTronics a registered company and a registered solar provider?

Both. KTronics (Pvt) Ltd is registered in Sri Lanka under company number PV 124279, incorporated in 2017, and the engineering practice behind it is twenty years old.

For solar work we are a Registered Solar PV Service Provider with the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority, number S00773, listed in the public register as "K Tronics (Pvt) Ltd". That registration covers solar PV work only — not CCTV, networks, automation or wiring — and it is a listing rather than an endorsement: the Authority does not recommend individual providers.

Do you only do solar?

No. Solar is one of 12 specialisations. The others include standby and uninterrupted power, generator-to-solar hybrid conversion, industrial automation, monitoring and control systems, industrial and domestic electrical wiring, power factor correction, energy conservation, network and IP/VPN solutions, CCTV and security, and home automation.

That matters when a site has more than one problem. A factory losing production to voltage dips does not need a solar salesman; it needs someone who can look at the incoming supply, the generator, the changeover and the loads together.

Do you work island-wide, or only around Colombo?

Island-wide. Our own engineers cover the whole Western Province — the Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara districts — as everyday work from the office in Kelaniya. Beyond it, installations have been delivered as far as the Galle and Kandy districts, and a maintenance agreement is honoured wherever the system is.

The registered office is not a shop: engineers come to the site by appointment, and every job starts with a visit before anything is quoted. If you are outside the Western Province, say where you are in the first message and we will tell you plainly whether we can serve you properly.

Are you tied to one brand of inverter or panel?

No. Equipment is chosen for the site, not for a distributorship. Installations use inverters from Solis, Deye, Solax, GoodWe, Growatt, SMA and Must; panels from Jinko, JA Solar and Longi; and protection from Phoenix Contact, zBeny, Schneider and Chint.

It also means we can service a system built around a brand we would not have chosen ourselves.

What does a system cost?

We do not publish prices, because a price quoted before anyone has seen the site is a guess. Every quotation follows a survey of the roof, the distribution board and the electricity bill.

What we do commit to is an itemised costing: the agreement lists the panels, the inverter, the surge protectors, the changeover switch, the enclosures and the metres of cable, down to the clamps and connectors, so the figure can be checked line by line. Work starts on a deposit and the remaining instalments fall due as each stage completes, on a schedule written into the agreement before anything is ordered.

What size of solar system do I need?

For a new system, start from what limits it rather than from the bill. Under the Net Plus scheme everything the system generates is sold to the utility and your own use is billed separately, so the system is no longer matched to your consumption. Three things set the size: the unshaded roof, the capacity of your electricity connection, and the budget.

On the assumptions our online estimator uses — five peak sun hours a day, 75% system efficiency and a 28-day month — each kilowatt of panels yields about 105 units (kWh) a month. A 5 kW system gives roughly 525 units a month and a 20 kW system about 2,100. Each kilowatt needs roughly five square metres of unshaded roof.

The connection sets the ceiling, because the utility approves a system only up to the contract demand of the supply: as a guide, about 5 kW on a 30 A single-phase connection, 20 kW on 30 A three-phase and 40 kW on 60 A three-phase. For a business we also size from the load profile and the maximum demand. Where the aim is to keep working through power cuts or to cut generator hours, the battery and inverter are sized from the loads that must stay on and for how long, not from the roof.

What is the difference between on-grid, hybrid and off-grid solar?

An on-grid system, also called grid-tie, has no battery. It feeds the grid under the utility agreement, costs the least per kilowatt, and switches itself off during a power cut — by design, so that it cannot energise a line someone is repairing.

A hybrid system adds a battery and a hybrid inverter. It stays connected to the grid, keeps chosen circuits running through a power cut, and can hold daytime energy for the evening. The current feed-in schedule also sets a higher rate for new battery systems on the units they export in the utility's priority hours.

An off-grid system is not connected to the utility at all. Panels, batteries and usually a generator carry the whole load, so it is sized from the load and the hours it must run unaided. It suits a site with no supply, or a supply too poor to rely on, and it earns nothing from the grid.

We install all three, and convert existing generator sites to solar hybrid. Which one fits is decided at the survey: by how often your supply fails, what must stay on when it does, and what the roof and the connection allow.

Which CEB or LECO solar scheme applies to a new system — is net metering still available?

Net Plus, and no: net metering is closed to new connections. The Ministry of Energy's directive of 11 September 2026 made Net Plus the only scheme for new rooftop solar agreements and closed Net Metering and Net Accounting to new applicants. Agreements already signed, and grid clearances granted on or before that date, keep their existing terms until they expire.

Under Net Plus the solar system has its own export meter. Every unit it generates is sold to the utility at a feed-in rate set by the Public Utilities Commission, and the electricity you use is billed separately at the normal tariff — the two are not netted against each other. New agreements run for up to twelve years, and the system needs a smart meter the utility can read remotely.

The feed-in rate depends on the size of the system, in bands that change at 10 kW, 40 kW and 250 kW, and smaller systems are paid more per unit. The Commission revises the schedule, and the current one runs until 24 February 2027, so the rates are not printed here: ask us which band your system falls in and what it pays today.

The utility is Electricity Distribution Lanka, which took over the Ceylon Electricity Board's distribution areas in March 2026, or LECO where LECO supplies you. Most people still call it the CEB, and so do we.

What are the steps to get rooftop solar approved and connected to the grid?

It starts online, with a capacity clearance. For a CEB-area supply the request is made in the EDLCare customer portal at edlcare.edl.lk, the former CEBCare, against the electricity account the system will connect to. LECO customers use LECO's Solar PV Capacity Clearance System at solar.leco.lk, where either the customer or the solar vendor signs in.

The EDLCare request states the scheme, the capacity asked for, the account holder's contact details and, now or later, the bank account the export payments go to. It needs a photograph of both sides of the account holder's national identity card and a recent electricity bill, and it is confirmed with a one-time code and a clearance fee paid online.

After that, five things happen in order. The utility checks the premises, and whether the connection and the local transformer can take the capacity, and issues the clearance. The system is installed. The utility's engineer inspects it and witnesses the tests. The agreement is signed in the account holder's name. The export meter is fitted — and only then may the system run in parallel with the grid.

We prepare and submit the request for you; what we need is the identity card photographs and the bill. How long the rest takes depends mostly on the utility's area office and on whether the local transformer has capacity to spare, so we do not promise a date that is not ours to keep.

Who handles the CEB or LECO paperwork?

We do. The application is prepared and submitted on your behalf — for a new system that is now a Net Plus application. The approval is granted to you — getting it is our job.

What warranty do I get, and for how long?

Ten years on every device we supply, and that is our own undertaking rather than a manufacturer's term passed on. Where a maker's warranty is shorter than ten years, the remainder is ours to honour — and where there is a claim to make, we raise it with the manufacturer ourselves rather than leaving you to argue it alone.

It is also why our quotations refuse cheap surge protection: fitting it voids the inverter warranty that we are the ones who have to honour.

What happens when something breaks?

The commitments are written into the maintenance agreement rather than left to goodwill, and they run for ten years while that agreement is in place. We respond to a reported hardware breakdown within six hours. An authorised person attends site within three working days of the report. Where the failed part is one we stock, we aim to resolve within five working days.

Where the part is not one we stock, the timeline is the manufacturer's, and the agreement says so rather than promising a date we cannot keep. Attendance beyond the agreed scope is chargeable at the rate written in your agreement.

Will you service a system another company installed?

Yes. It does not matter who installed it. A good deal of our service work is on systems built by somebody else, including diagnosing and repairing inverter boards rather than simply replacing the unit.

Is my system monitored after you leave?

Yes, for the term of the maintenance agreement. Systems on our platform are read daily, faults raise an email when they happen, and every Sunday the customer receives what their system produced that week, that month and that year.

The platform is ours — we build the monitoring rather than reselling a portal — and 24 customer systems are live on it today.

What will monitoring not catch?

It is tuned to catch a system that has stopped or thrown a fault. A system quietly producing less than it should — a dirty array, a shaded string, a panel degrading — is found at the annual inspection or by reading the weekly report, not by an alarm the same day.

We would rather say that than imply we see everything.

How do I start?

Message +94 772 360 819 on WhatsApp, call the same number between monday to friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, email info@ktronics.lk, or send the enquiry form. Photographs of the bill, the board or the roof make the first conversation a great deal shorter.

A question that is not here is worth asking directly — the answer will be as plain as these are. See also what happens after the installation and the work itself.