Staff Reporter:
The country experienced a massive load-shedding on Thursday as the power generation witnessed a fall due to an acute gas shortage.
According to official statistics of the Power Grid Bangladesh PLC, the country started the day with a load-shedding of 1,850MW and it was experiencing 1,795 MW of shortage in power supply at 12 noon.
At that time, the power demand was 14,750MW and the supply was 12,870MW.
The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) forecast shows that the country’s demand will go up to 15,500MW in the evening.
Officials fear that the extent of load-shedding will go up further with the increased demand in the evening.
Dhaka city has been experiencing massive power cuts as residents of many areas complained that they have been facing frequent load-shedding at different spells.
Power utility officials are attributing a drastic fall in gas supply to power plants behind this situation.
Petrobangla official statistics showed that the country’s gas supply has declined to 2,253 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) due to a shortfall in import LNG supply.
Petrobangla’s LNG supply capacity came down to 243MMCFD from 1,100MMCFD which ultimately led to a huge fall in power generation, said the BPDB officials.
On 4 July, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said the power supply situation would improve in the next three to four days while the gas supply would be uninterrupted by the middle of this month.
While addressing a post-budget press conference at the ministry conference room, the state minister claimed that the power supply situation already started witnessing an improvement.
“We are now trying our best and the situation is under our control. Gas will be uninterrupted on 15-16 July.”
He informed that India’s Adani Power resumed electricity supply while the Payra power plant already came into operation.
