No respite from load shedding, power outages
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Shahiduzzaman Khan
Load-shedding across the country turned out to be severe again in the last few days as power generation was reduced considerably following shutdown of Ashuganj Power Station following a fire, and also because other plants are not being supplied sufficient gas. Most parts of the city suffered frequent power outages, some areas for up to six hours everyday, as power generation slumped to only around 3,400-3,500MW from around 3,800MW, further widening the margin between supply and demand.
The power supply situation in the city had improved for sometime at the start of the sweltering summer, but the latest dip in generation has resulted in frequent outages throughout the country. All the seven power generation units of Ashuganj Power Station in Brahmanbaria were shut down following a fire at a transformer this week. The generation capacity of the seven units is about 730-MW. Out of seven, six units, however, resumed operation late last week after repair.
Power plants in and around Haripur are not being supplied adequate gas, which have been facing gas shortage for months. However Titas Gas chief claimed that some of the PDB's power plants, like those in Ashuganj and Ghorasal, were getting more gas. As the country does not have any dedicated gas line for any power plant, the closure of any plant will not ultimately result in increase of gas supply to other power plants.
Meanwhile, the country's energy-starved knitwear manufacturers have sought the Prime Minister's intervention for improving the gas and power supply to the industrial sector by rationing gas from the CNG stations and fertiliser factories. The supply of power and gas in the factories has declined sharply. To make things worse, Bangladesh's productivity in the apparel sector has not improved, and remains at a much lower level compared to other competitors like China. Against Bangladesh's productivity of 35 percent, China's is about 80 percent, and major Southeast Asian countries' are in the 70 percent range.
Consequent upon this, the country is losing its competitiveness in the apparel business in international markets. Overall exports of Bangladesh to European market showed a negative growth at 0.2 per cent whereas the growth of knitwear export increased only 0.19 per cent in 2009. The knitwear exports to USA registered 9.95 per cent negative growth in 2009 from 15 per cent in 2008.
Most of the ready-made garment (RMG) owners are now finding themselves in a sticky situation as their factories fail to comply with the deadlines of the orders. The majority of them may have 20 to 30 per cent of the job to finish and meet the deadlines, but frequent power cuts and low gas pressure eat up their shipment time. Worse still, their buyers refuse to accept partial shipment -- they want the whole lot in one go. In the end, the garment owners have to sort out this trouble in a costly way. They have to charter planes and send their apparels. For this they have to pay huge extra money from their own pockets as airfreight. Such incidents are happening too often now. With frequent power cuts and dipping gas pressure, the machines remain silent for hours in factories.
Even the government's daylight saving time (DST) formula to save electricity did not have the desired effect in improving the power situation. The city dwellers alleged that the power situation had not changed even after introduction of the DST last year. Load-shedding and power outages remained the same. The people are facing tremendous sufferings due to frequent load shedding. Consumption of electricity at houses, offices, markets and other establishments has increased for the last several days due to excessive summer heat while production of power remained low for the shortfall in gas pressure. There is no possibility of getting respite from the load shedding and power outages immediately, weather experts said.
Right now, the country is reeling under power and gas crises, and no end is in view within the next couple of years. Different gas-fired power plants having around 800-megawatt power generation capacity have remained idle due to the gas crisis. This is intensifying the over-all power load shedding, which tends to hover between 1,200 MW and 1,500 MW daily -- which is one third of the country's power demand.
Due to high dependency on foreign loan for the development of power sector followed by high system-loss and poor management, power supply situation continued to deteriorate. Some age old power plants were in the process of rehabilitation in order to regain the lost capacity and to avoid complete shut down. But the process is taking too much time.
As the power crisis was gripping the country, a good step was thought to make a breakthrough to minimise the power crisis through import of power through cross border power trade. The eastern part of India has surplus generation capacity, on the other hand, the western side of Bangladesh has serious shortfall. Asian Development Bank (ADB) was also interested to finance a cross border study about the import of power from the eastern part of neighbouring India. There was exchange of visits between India and Bangladesh. However, after 1995, the study could not proceed further due to political disturbance in Bangladesh.
The present government is, however, trying to bring about a radical change in the country's energy sector. Both short-term and long-term measures have been taken up to solve the nagging power and gas crises. What is needed at this time is that the closed power plants need to be overhauled as soon as possible and the private sector be encouraged to set up independent power plants to generate electricity immediately.
szkhan@dhaka.net
Load-shedding across the country turned out to be severe again in the last few days as power generation was reduced considerably following shutdown of Ashuganj Power Station following a fire, and also because other plants are not being supplied sufficient gas. Most parts of the city suffered frequent power outages, some areas for up to six hours everyday, as power generation slumped to only around 3,400-3,500MW from around 3,800MW, further widening the margin between supply and demand.
The power supply situation in the city had improved for sometime at the start of the sweltering summer, but the latest dip in generation has resulted in frequent outages throughout the country. All the seven power generation units of Ashuganj Power Station in Brahmanbaria were shut down following a fire at a transformer this week. The generation capacity of the seven units is about 730-MW. Out of seven, six units, however, resumed operation late last week after repair.
Power plants in and around Haripur are not being supplied adequate gas, which have been facing gas shortage for months. However Titas Gas chief claimed that some of the PDB's power plants, like those in Ashuganj and Ghorasal, were getting more gas. As the country does not have any dedicated gas line for any power plant, the closure of any plant will not ultimately result in increase of gas supply to other power plants.
Meanwhile, the country's energy-starved knitwear manufacturers have sought the Prime Minister's intervention for improving the gas and power supply to the industrial sector by rationing gas from the CNG stations and fertiliser factories. The supply of power and gas in the factories has declined sharply. To make things worse, Bangladesh's productivity in the apparel sector has not improved, and remains at a much lower level compared to other competitors like China. Against Bangladesh's productivity of 35 percent, China's is about 80 percent, and major Southeast Asian countries' are in the 70 percent range.
Consequent upon this, the country is losing its competitiveness in the apparel business in international markets. Overall exports of Bangladesh to European market showed a negative growth at 0.2 per cent whereas the growth of knitwear export increased only 0.19 per cent in 2009. The knitwear exports to USA registered 9.95 per cent negative growth in 2009 from 15 per cent in 2008.
Most of the ready-made garment (RMG) owners are now finding themselves in a sticky situation as their factories fail to comply with the deadlines of the orders. The majority of them may have 20 to 30 per cent of the job to finish and meet the deadlines, but frequent power cuts and low gas pressure eat up their shipment time. Worse still, their buyers refuse to accept partial shipment -- they want the whole lot in one go. In the end, the garment owners have to sort out this trouble in a costly way. They have to charter planes and send their apparels. For this they have to pay huge extra money from their own pockets as airfreight. Such incidents are happening too often now. With frequent power cuts and dipping gas pressure, the machines remain silent for hours in factories.
Even the government's daylight saving time (DST) formula to save electricity did not have the desired effect in improving the power situation. The city dwellers alleged that the power situation had not changed even after introduction of the DST last year. Load-shedding and power outages remained the same. The people are facing tremendous sufferings due to frequent load shedding. Consumption of electricity at houses, offices, markets and other establishments has increased for the last several days due to excessive summer heat while production of power remained low for the shortfall in gas pressure. There is no possibility of getting respite from the load shedding and power outages immediately, weather experts said.
Right now, the country is reeling under power and gas crises, and no end is in view within the next couple of years. Different gas-fired power plants having around 800-megawatt power generation capacity have remained idle due to the gas crisis. This is intensifying the over-all power load shedding, which tends to hover between 1,200 MW and 1,500 MW daily -- which is one third of the country's power demand.
Due to high dependency on foreign loan for the development of power sector followed by high system-loss and poor management, power supply situation continued to deteriorate. Some age old power plants were in the process of rehabilitation in order to regain the lost capacity and to avoid complete shut down. But the process is taking too much time.
As the power crisis was gripping the country, a good step was thought to make a breakthrough to minimise the power crisis through import of power through cross border power trade. The eastern part of India has surplus generation capacity, on the other hand, the western side of Bangladesh has serious shortfall. Asian Development Bank (ADB) was also interested to finance a cross border study about the import of power from the eastern part of neighbouring India. There was exchange of visits between India and Bangladesh. However, after 1995, the study could not proceed further due to political disturbance in Bangladesh.
The present government is, however, trying to bring about a radical change in the country's energy sector. Both short-term and long-term measures have been taken up to solve the nagging power and gas crises. What is needed at this time is that the closed power plants need to be overhauled as soon as possible and the private sector be encouraged to set up independent power plants to generate electricity immediately.
szkhan@dhaka.net