Due to frequent load-shedding in the country in recent months, sales of generators and IPSs have increased substantially amid higher demand from industrial units and households.
Apart from industries, generators have been installed in many apartment complexes, while individual households, not having generator access, are setting up IPS to get rid of power outages, sector insiders said.
Meanwhile, some opportunists, cashing in on the load-shedding situation, have installed industrial-grade generators in different city areas to supply electricity to households, shops, and businesses.
Most parts of the capital Dhaka have been seeing at least three to five hours of load-shedding per day for the last couple of months, forcing many people to buy generators or IPSs, said Saiful Alam, a sales manager of Nawabpur-based Galaxy Electro Power Ltd.
Visiting Old Dhaka's Nawabpur, a wholesale hub for generators, it was observed that different shops were selling mainly two types of generators - industrial and household - which mostly run by diesel, petrol, gas, or solar power.
According to the Kings Trading International, a generator wholesaler in Nawabpur, prices of diesel-run industrial generators of different brands range between Tk 200,000 and Tk 1,200,000.
On the other hand, prices of small-sized generators, compatible for residential buildings or shops, range from Tk 50,000 to Tk 200,000.
Jalal Ahmed, a businessman in the city's Madhya Badda, who recently installed a 375 kVA diesel generator to supply electricity in households and shops, told the FE that he had been in the business for the last 10 years but had never seen such demands for power before.
He said, "In the last four to five years, due to lower rate of load-shedding, I have been operating a 100 kVA generator to power up mostly shops. But since July this year, many people have requested me to provide connections to their households."
Mr Jalal charges lowest Tk 500 per month for two lights and two fans, while there are also different packages available for other types of connections for running fridges, air-conditioners or computers.
Besides, many apartment complexes, having elevators and generators, have increased service charges in recent months as they need to run generators for an extended period of time amid hike in fuel prices.
Rusaifa Khondaker, a flat-owner at a large apartment complex in the city's Panthapath, said her monthly service charge had increased to Tk 4,700 recently from Tk 3,500 due to increased cost of fuel used for running the generator.
Currently, a litre of diesel is sold at Tk 109 while petrol at Tk 125 and octane at Tk 130 at the refuelling stations.
Rabiul Ahsan, a freelance graphics designer who works from home, told the FE that he had installed a 1200-watt Rahimafrooz RZ 1650 Sine Wave IPS (Instant Power Supply) to work uninterruptedly.
The IPS inverter alone cost him Tk 77,000 while the battery cost around Tk 25,000.
However, lower capacity IPSs that can power up three lights and three fans are available from Tk 25,000 to Tk 35,000 with the cost of battery.
Many people are also buying IPS batteries to replace the old ones in a bid to cope with the frequent power outage.
Besides, offices and households are also installing UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), priced between Tk 2,500 and Tk 5,000, to ensure backup for desktop computers.
The government had to cut power generation in phases last July ahead of a shortage of energy following a fuel price hike in the international market caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In the meantime, the national grid failure on October 04 that started from the Ghorashal Thermal Power Plant in Narsingdi further intensified the power outage not just in the capital but the entire country.
Currently, the demand for power is around 15,000 megawatts (MW), but the power plants are producing electricity in between 12,000 MW and 13,500 MW, causing a shortage of 1,500-3,000 MW per day.
