Frequency of fluctuation is the root cause of cascading power failures, sometimes resulting in a blackout. The frequency for all alternating current (AC) supplies in most countries in Asia and elsewhere is 50 cycles per second. In Bangladesh, unfortunately this is anything between probably 48.5 or even less than 48 cycles per second at times and things are managed by regular load shedding. In view of stolen meterless and unknown and unrecorded load, the concerned technical persons have very little idea of how much load to be shed and they tend to over-correct to compensate for the unknown stolen load. Probably with the same factors operating on both sides across the border on this occasion, the estimate fell short and may have led to a blackout. Our main aim is to ensure that the frequency never falls below 49.5 cycles per second. But given the tendency of power stealing that goes on, the only way out seems to be regular calculated load shedding. It is better to be safe than sorry. I am not aware of the factors responsible for the recent countrywide blackout, but grid-wide blackouts do happen, caused sometimes by storms and other abnormal weather conditions.
In Bangladesh, we have the whole grid interconnected. So it is all one grid. It was done with grid by grid isolation to overcome this problem. No wonder it took time as our intercom across the grids is also no foolproof. To my knowledge, very few countries have one interconnected grid network all across the country, like ours.
Engr. S.A.Mansoor
Dhaka.
Fix the frequency
FE Team | Published: November 10, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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