Vast rural areas go without power for long hours in sultry summer

The consumers of Rural Electrification Board (REB), mainly living in the rural areas of Bangladesh, are experiencing 4 to 5 times more load-shedding in a day in this sultry summer as Bangladesh Power development Board (BPDB) has drastically cut their allocation that stands around 2,500 MW per day.

"We are facing serious crisis to run our operations, our employees and officials are facing serious problem to discharge their duties, people have became furious, they don't not like to face frequent load-shedding in this hot weather. On Sunday, they attacked our Feni PBS, vandalized our office, assaulted our staff members demanding electricity. It is a fact that the demand for electricity has gone up but it is also a true that we are getting poor supply against our demand," a senior official of REB told the Daily Observer on Monday preferring anonymity.

According to the REB's data book, the people living in rural areas of the country have experienced around 2,450 MW of load-shedding on Sunday evening against the demand a of 8,600 MW electricity.

"We alone are facing the shortages of 2,000 MW to 2,450 MW of load-shedding on average over the last couple of days. We don't know the situation of other distributing agencies,"  the official said. Meanwhile, BPDB's website said there was a 1,500 MW of load-shedding on Sunday across the country.

Inadequate amount of gas supply, forced shut down of country's biggest power plants and fuel crisis have jeopardized the BPDB's power production plan which has put the country into a grave danger in this sultry summer, a BPDB's senior official said.

"After making a record of crossing 15,300 MW benchmark, the country's overall power generation again declined to below 15,000 MW on Saturday as three of our major base load plants including 360 MW Asuganj North and 400MW Asuganj East along with the 660 MW first unit of Rampal Bangladesh-India Moitree power plant went out of order suddenly," the official added.

REB official said the situation of Dhaka PBSs and the adjoining areas and grater Mymenshing are the worst hit.

'The RPCL is not getting fuel (gas) as per their demand; on the other hand, due transmission problem, we cannot supply electricity to the grater Mymenshing through the other way," official added.

According to official sources, the sudden shutdown of the 660 MW first unit of Rampal Bangladesh-India Moitree power plant has plunged the wide areas of Khulna-Barishal-Gopalganj into darkness. With the Rampal, the 307MW Barishal power plant, two units of Sirajganj power plants, each with a capacity of 220 MW, and Siddhirganj 335MW power plant were completely out of operation on Sunday.

No one knows the cause of this forced shutdown of Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited (BIFPCL) power plant, however, Rampal power plant deputy general manager Anwarul Azim said the plant had to be shut down because of technical problems, adding that the power station was shut down at least half a dozen times in less than a year of its operation.

Meanwhile, BPDB's website said, on Saturday, 147 power plants were available for production, according to the PGCB, with 85 of the plants operating not at all or at less than full capacity. The fuel shortage disrupted production in 56 power plants while machine or engine problems hit 29 plants.

 However, a total of 13 more power plants were under maintenance while five other plants operated at a lower capacity as part of a contingency plan.

To manage the summer crisis, the government has withdrawn the suspension on power generation by liquid -fired power plants. Following that order, BPDB is now getting only 700 MW power from the diesel-fired power plants although they are able to produce around 6,000 MW of electricity.