The fault lines in Saturday's countrywide blackout still remained clouded in the 'dark' as the Power Division declined to assign any specific reason while energy experts blamed insufficient 'protective measure' for the massive power-system breakdown.
After the outage had occurred, the Power Division under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources constituted an eight-member inquiry committee headed by an additional secretary and outlined a three-day timeframe for the panel to report the reasons.
Terming the grid failure a 'mystery', the experts stressed a 'neutral technical committee' to fix the problem that caused the worst-ever blackout in the country in recent times.
Speaking at a press conference Sunday, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid termed the blackout a 'blessing in disguise'.
He meant to say that the power authorities were caught off-guards and it would help in taking preventive measures against recurrence of such incident in future.
"We shall recruit consultant to advise us taking precautionary measures and tackle such incident in future," he told reporters at a press conference at Biddyut Bhaban in the city.
A technical glitch in the country's western grid caused the countrywide outage Saturday, power secretary Monowar Islam said at the press briefing.
The transmission line that brings imported electricity from neighboring India is connected with the western grid.
The 'shock' in the electricity line was massive, Prime Minister's energy adviser Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury said to a query on the power quake.
And "the protective relay system in the transmission line failed as a consequence".
The state minister urged people to wait with patience until the crux of the findings was revealed.
When his attention was drawn to the media report that the national grid failed following a technical glitch on the Indian side of the cross-border Bangladesh-India power line, the state minister said there should not be any conclusion on the issue until the committee finds out the fact.
He said country's overall electricity generation was brought back to normal, matching with the demand for around 4,900 megawatts Sunday.
Currently there is no load shedding in the country at least for generation constraints, he said.
There might have been some scattered outages due to faults of local transformers and distribution systems, he added.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on constant monitoring of the situation, giving her valuable directives during the period, Mr Hamid told the press.
He also stressed that the country's important installations like hospitals, airports must have backup support system at least for 48 hours to face any exigency such as this.
The Ministry of Health and Family Affairs should come up to establish backups in hospitals and the Civil Aviation Authority for airports, he suggested.
Tawfiq-e- Elahi Chowdhury thanked people for being calm after the incident, reminding that 20 years back a similar incident took place in New York that led to murder and robbery and many untoward incidents in the city.
But there was no such incident in Bangladesh during the period.
Narrating Saturday's blackout, the power secretary said the country's electricity supply system suddenly collapsed following technical glitch in the western grid at 11:30 am.
As the power plants have connections with the national grid, country's all the power plants shut down one after another as a 'cascade effect', he added.
The power plants had been on track of reinitiating electricity generation until 3 pm Saturday when some 800MW electricity was generated, he said.
"But a failure in synchronizing electricity generation and supply caused the overall supply failure second time in the afternoon," said Mr Islam.
Finally, the power plants started generating electricity again from 9 pm Saturday, he added. The secretary thanked the media for what he said filing objective reports over the incident.
BD Rahmatullah, a former director-general of the state-run Power Cell, sees Saturday's blackout as an outcome of the failure of the Bheramara substation.
"The Bheramara substation that converts Indian high-voltage direct current (HDVC) to alternating current (AC) before transmitting it into the national grid might have faulty design or substandard equipment," he said.
The contractors who designed the substation and procured equipment should be brought to book, he demanded.
Professor Ijaz Hossain of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) apprehended that supply of 'low-voltage' electricity from India might have caused the tripping of the transmission line for which the entire grid system collapsed.
The government should properly upgrade the transmission and distribution system before importing electricity from India, the engineering professor pointed out.
Stressing a neutral enquiry into the incident, Prof Nurul Islam of BUET suggested establishing backup power systems in hospitals, airports, for mobile-phone operators and law enforcers to ensure escape from any unwanted hazards in future.
azizjst@yahoo.com
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