Load shedding- how long will it last?

To prevent power crisis, the government had given the schedule of load shedding for two hours day and night. It should be implemented in an area-wise schedule. But for the past few days, there has been no precedent for the implementation of this decision of the government in the capital. City dwellers are not getting electricity for at least eight hours out of 24 hours. Occasional power outages. Sometimes electricity comes after an hour and sometimes after two to two and a half hours. On the one hand, load shedding, on the other hand, public life has become a bit boring in summer.

According to the power department, the power generation capacity in the country is now 25 thousand 730 MW. In the last few years, the power generation capacity has increased due to various initiatives taken in this sector. With this increase in capacity, load shedding almost disappeared. Especially in urban areas, there were no power outages. But load shedding has increased excessively in the last few months. And now it has become evident.

According to those concerned, load shedding has increased slightly after the recent grid disaster. Although the power department is showing hope that the crisis will end soon. According to the sources of the power department, a large part of the gas supplied to the country is used for power generation. The government is under pressure due to the increase in the price of all types of fuel in the world market for the past few months. Therefore, the shutdown of oil-fired power plants was announced. Gas-based power plants were also providing electricity by reducing production and load shedding.

But there are no rural or industrial areas in that schedule. Electricity supply is kept stable in the capital as well as in industrial areas. But at present the situation has become such that in the last 7-8 years the people of the city have not faced such a situation with electricity.

Meanwhile, there has been a lot of writing on social media for the past few days about the power situation. Many people say that electricity can go out after an hour. Load shedding for two to three hours a day is not unusual. Even after extensive development of the country’s power system, load shedding has not been possible to zero. However, load shedding has increased recently after the grid disaster. Which is gradually moving away from the tolerable stage.

According to the information of the Electricity Department, last October 8 (Saturday), the electricity demand at peak hour was 13,600 MW, and the production was 11,800 MW. Accordingly, a shortfall has been observed compared to the electricity demand of 1800 MW. Earlier on Friday, peak hour demand was 11,899 MW and generation was 9,241 MW, resulting in a shortfall of 2,658 MW.

On October 4, around 2 pm, a sudden disaster occurred in the eastern part of the national grid. As a result, a large part of four divisions of the country, including Dhaka, became without electricity. Due to this disaster, power generation in the eastern grid dropped to zero. At that time, 85 power plants were shut down within an hour. Which takes six to seven hours to overcome.

Analysts say that the instability created by the Russia-Ukraine war in the international energy market has affected Bangladesh’s electricity production. It was being claimed by the government that load shedding has disappeared in Bangladesh, which is moving towards 100% electrification. Meanwhile, for the past few days, there have been reports of frequent power outages from the capital to rural areas.

According to the government’s National Load Despatch Centre, the maximum supply is forecast to be 12,818 MW against the demand of 14,000 MW across the country last Monday. On this day, about 9 percent less electricity is produced than the demand, which has to be adjusted through load management (load shedding).

It is important to overcome this situation to keep the wheels of development moving. For this reason, the government has to take an action plan to become self-sufficient in power generation quickly. And for this integrated planning is the need of the hour.