Notwithstanding the assurance of zero or negligible power outage on the weekend or holidays, the power supply situation worsened on Friday and Saturday last. The authorities themselves admitted the shortage in supply of electricity and the consequent load-shedding. One of the reasons is the non-operation of six units out of seven of Ghorashal power plant on account of scarcity of natural gas. It is like a doubled-edged sword that cuts both ways. If the scarce gas now generated is supplied to the power plant, many other areas of economy including domestic consumers suffer. If power is generated in quantities less than required, production of factories and industries is disrupted. All this is because of overdependence on gas that once was mistakenly thought to be limitless in the gas fields. This wrong notion also contributed to atrocious misuse of the gas generated.
What is to be done then to meet the power crisis? Rampal thermal power plant was supposed to start generating electricity in September. Now a report says it will go into operation sometime this month. Since its inauguration on March 21 this year by the prime minister, Payra coal-fired plant has been generating power and contributing to the national power grid. Even without the two large thermal power plants, the generation at times exceeded the demand. But it was a mistake to renew licences for captive power plants instead of devising a plan for phasing those out soon. Had a plan for renewable power plants been put in place immediately after going for the temporary salvage measure from power crunch, things would have improved to a great extent by now. Maybe, the coal-fired power plants could be dispensed with. Now that fuel oils and gas have become dearer globally, countries like Bangladesh have little choice other than going for thermal power plants.
Amid the gloomy prospect of maintaining a balance between dirty power generation and the environment, the Rooppur nuclear power plant is the only light at the end of the tunnel. All other projects, including the coastal wind-power plant, as mentioned by the authorities concerned from time to time, show no sign of taking off. But once the dirty power plants crowd different locations of the country in the days to come, the choice for generation of green energy will not be easy. Once the demand is met, as it happened in case of the rental power plants, the authorities may not feel the urge for transition to green energy.
The national grid failure is a one-off kind. People can bear with it once in a while but if load-shedding happens for three to six hours a day, its impact on life and living can be immeasurable. For example, examinees of the higher secondary examination scheduled for next month will suffer immensely on account of such frequent and long power outages. Disruption of normal life means it has its snowballing impacts on production and economy. As it was found by a new study by the Rockefeller Foundation and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, heat causes loss of productivity to the tune of $6.0 billion a year for Dhaka city alone. The scorching heat is made worse by the absence of power. So loss of productivity goes up. Clearly, this is an emergency and an all-out effort should be there to meet the demand for electricity.