Power situation improves as big plants begin generation
Fertiliser production hit as KAFCO and JFCL have been shut to increase gas supply to power plants
Staff Reporter
The power situation has improved, as the big plants have begun generating electricity before Ramadan. Sources said the government yesterday shut down factories of the Karnaphuli Fertilizer Company (KAFCO) and the Jamuna Fertilizer Company Limited (JFCL) to increase gas supply to power plants that feed the national grid.
The 450MW private power plant, IPP, and the 360MW Asugonj power plant resumed generation on Saturday. This makes the system more healthy, Abul Baser Khan, member (generation) of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), told The Independent.
After KAFCO was shut down, we started another unit of the 210MW Rawjan power plant. This could solve the power crisis in the Chittagong region. Our target is to generate 10,555MW during Ramadan. Hopefully, from Sunday the generation target will be met when the Big IPP Summit 430MW Bibiyana plant will begin generation he said.
Todays power generation at 9pm was 9356 MW. This was the highest generation so far in the country, said Saiful Hasan Chowdhury, Director-PR of PDB yesterday.
Last week, the country experienced massive load shedding, as the heat wave passed across the country and the temperature was 37 degrees Celsius in some areas. The power demand was more than 11,000MW, but the supply was only 8,500MW, sources said. A shortfall of 2,500MW resulted in record load shedding in recent years.
For the last few days, power outage at peak hours has amounted to 2,0003,200MW every day. The website of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) shows that the country has been experiencing the worst spell of load-shedding in the last nine years. This is in stark contrast to the previous year, when the government celebrated the generation of 15,000MW of power in the country.
But some rain brought relief to people on Friday and the demand dropped to 8,000MW.
Usually, after the rain the demand drops in some parts of the country. There was a power surplus of 800MW on Friday, said a BPDB official.
But the heat was back on Saturday and the demand increased as sources in the power sector told the Independent that the power crisis will continue till the arrival of the first drops of monsoon rain. The demand for electricity has skyrocketed very quickly, breaking the prediction made by the Power System Master Plan (PSMP). The official said
the gas crisis exists even after the two fertilizer factories were shut down. The 220MW Shiddirganj plant generated 120MW, Haripur (360MW) only 80MW. The BPDB needs
1,200MMCFD of gas to generate more than 10,000MW of power, but gets only 1,010MMCFD. If we get the gas we need, the power crisis will not be there for long, said an official of the BPDB. On 18 April, the BPDB generated 9,212MW of power, an all-time high. The officials said they hope to surpass it within a few days.
According to BPDB website, on May 24, 2010, the highest generation of power was 4356MW, and load shedding was 743 MW; on 24 May ,2011, the highest generation was 4837MW and the load shedding was 707MW; in May, 2012 the highest generation was 5782MW; on 24 May, 2013, the highest generation was 5366MW; on 24 May, 2014, the highest generation was 5705MW and load shedding was 140MW; on 24 May, 2015, the highest generation was 7394, on 24 May, 2016, the highest generation was 7878MW and load shedding was 252MW. On May 24, BPDB website showed that the load shedding figure was 979 MW. But the experts believe that this is not the accurate figure of load shedding. According to them it would be between 2000MW to 3000MW.
