Worst power outage ever

A technical glitz at the Bhemara national grid, which also sucks imported power from neighbouring India, is reported to have caused the worst blackout ever. True, even the best production and distribution system of electricity is not without risks -manmade or otherwise. But how good such a system is, is best determined by the speed of response to a crisis like this. That the response was slow and its impact was telling for the entire nation is undisputed. For many the experience was simply nightmarish because they were caught off guard. When uncertainty loomed large over the restoration of electricity hours after the massive blackout, there was even apprehension of something ominous particularly on the eve of a two-day hartal. Widespread sufferings in terms of loss of trade, man-hour in offices and study for students with the ill boding at the back of their heads did give people a most torrid time on Saturday night.      

Now that Bangladesh has experienced a massive power outage, there is a need for a thorough assessment of the management of the system. Subsequent investigation into a similar US-Canada blackout of 2003 came up with precise identification of the faults causing the grid disruption. Power plants at Ghorashal are very old and experts have recommended decommissioning those and replacing with technologically advanced and superior ones.   Sure enough, generation of electricity is an important issue, its transmission is another but no less important at that. Even rational distribution of power matters. The country's power import from India was a major achievement but Saturday's power failure is hinted at incompatibility of systems. This issue needs to be clarified first. In fact, there was a need to be sanguine about the reliability of the transmission system before starting import of power from India. Following the 2003 North-east blackout, the US-Canada Power System Outage Task Force identified, on investigation, that multiple trips were triggered by a single suburban plant in Ohio which went offline amid high electrical demand. Even overgrown trees played a part when under severe strain high-voltage power lines came in contact with those and went out of service. All these contributed to the cascading effect that resulted in shutdown of 100 power plants.

Whether anything similar has occurred in case of Saturday's outage in Bangladesh will be known if the committee formed to find out the causes can accomplish the demanding job. There should be enough technical expertise in order to get at the bottom of the critical point where things went wrong. The committee should also be charged with the added responsibility of suggesting back-up measures. A software bug in the computer in case of the US-Canada blackout stalled the control room alarm for over an hour and system operators were unaware of the malfunction. So, even a digitised control room is not a guarantee for early warning of excessive load-shedding or power tripping. Perhaps further back-up measures may be an answer. How the US-Canda power authorities overcame the problem can be a lesson for the power development authority here. But before this, the investigation committee should accurately pinpoint the flaws.