Bangladesh’s electricity crisis appears to have relented slightly with the restart of the diesel-run power plants and increased supply of gas.
Daily electricity shortage has fallen to 500MW now from over 2,000MW last month, according to data provided by the authorities, reports bdnews24.com.
“The situation is quite good now and it’s getting better,” said Nasrul Hamid, state minister for power, energy and mineral resources. Nasrul earlier said rotating power cuts will stop by the end of September.
The government came up with several decisions to avert an economic crisis by exercising austerity in energy consumption following a spike in fuel prices in the international market.
In an effort to save up the dollar, Bangladesh also reduced power generation after cutting down fuel imports.
Nationwide rotating power cuts returned after Bangladesh stopped importing LNG from spot markets in July and suspended production in diesel-run power plants.
According to Power Development Board data, the power plants supplied 11,100MW electricity against a demand for 13,485MW on Jul 19, forcing the authorities to cut off supply across the country in rotation to tackle a shortage of 2,385MW.
However, the power supply-demand gap has come down to around 500MW over the last week after the diesel-run plants came back to life.
According to the PDB website, Bangladesh required a load-shedding of 511MW on Tuesday. Friday and Wednesday saw vast improvements with a deficit of around 200MW, a PDB official said.
“There’s almost no load-shedding now,” said Md Ashraful Islam, a member of PDB.
Gas-fired power plants were receiving around 950 million cubic feet of gas a day, but the supply gradually rose to 1,146 million cubic feet on Friday, according to the Petrobangla website.
Nazmul Ahsan, the chairman of Petrobangla, said almost 40 per cent of their supplies go to electricity production. “We’ve been getting more gas pressure for the last few days, and thus, supplying more.”
Bangladesh imports 500 million cubic feet of LNG every day from Qatar and Oman on long-term contracts. Five ships arrive in the country with gas. Recently, the ships have frequented the ports more than usual, increasing the supply by 100 million cubic feet.
An official at the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources said: “The diesel-based plants are running as needed.”
State Minister Nasrul Hamid said these plants are being run “despite losses”.
Meanwhile, the government’s decision to shut stores and shopping malls by 8 pm and a fall in temperature have reduced the demand “a little”, an official of the board said.
The austerity measures kept the demand “around 1,400MW”, according to him. The official requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media on the issue.