Power production and distribution at the local level
Friday, 24 April 2009
Syed Fattahul Alim
When resources are scarce, people try to adjust to the situation through various innovative techniques. Whatever the method or how innovative it is, the bottom line is: use less of the resources available. But if the number of users of the resource in question increases in a progressive fashion day in, day out, then newer and more innovative methods would be necessary to adopt for far lesser of the resources. Now the fundamental question is how long can this red-herring be used to make people adjust to the scarcity? So, there must be a limit to such methods of tightening the belt and one has to draw the line somewhere.
The resource under consideration is power. This basic resource for modern life has been in short supply for long in Bangladesh. The situation has not improved over time, though the number of its users is increasing every year. So, those in charge of managing the distribution and supply of power to the consumers did devise the method of load-shedding during the peak hours of using electricity. But the use of this method of managing the scarcity has meanwhile been stretched to its limit. And as the production of power has not increased to keep pace with the demand, the load of and the demand for power has been getting wider and wider. So, the load-shedding too has become frequenter. At present the incidence of such load-shedding has lost its earlier pattern. All the differences between the peak hours and the non-peak hours have blurred. The consumers are getting more and more impatient. They have started to attack the offices where power is distributed from.
Such behaviour of the users going berserk over irregularity of power supply has struck terror among the workers in the power supply office. With the summer heat beating down more fiercely, people are also becoming more aggressive.
In the face of this growing crisis and the consumers' intolerance, the government is now thinking about introducing yet another exercise in learning to live with this unending crisis in the power production and distribution regime. The now new idea being thought about is Daylight Saving Time or in short, DST. This new technique was invented by the British and used first by the Germans in the early part of the last century. Then the practice crossed the Atlantic into the USA. The government of that country could not continue it due to protest from farmers. Though discontinued in the beginning, it was re-introduced in that country later on. The history of DST apart, the fact of the matter is that it is another way of asking the people to adjust to less power, though in a different manner. In the case of load-shedding, as it is the practice in Bangladesh, it comes from nowhere and take people by surprise. And as it is not a matter of fun, the consumers are naturally angry at its unexpected appearance.
In the case of the DST, it will be the people who will have to change their behaviour in order that the peak time of power use, which is around the shopping time in the evening, is dispersed. And if the people could be prevented from converging at a particular time of the day for shopping at the malls, then at least the use of evening power in the cities and bigger towns could be reduced by pulling the hour hand of the clock back by a few notches. But then what about the farmers or the students who start their work or study in the evening? What will happen to travel or international business communications done in the evening hours? For in the case of Western Europe, where the sun rises five to six hours later than in Bangladesh, there the peak business hours are when it is evening time here.
So there are both the brighter and the dimmer sides of this newer technique of power saving. Now the bigger question is will DST, if introduced, contribute towards saving any power at all in Bangladesh? For if there is really no surplus power left for saving, then that is not going to help matters in the long run, even if it is a very ingenious method of load management. With the passing of the days, people will get frustrated even with this new way of redistributing the scarcity of power over time without creating any new power.
The solution to crisis of power does not lie in these various cunning of delaying the ultimate to come.
True, the setting of a big power station and the setting up of distribution lines to carry the power to its various destinations far and near is a time-consuming affair. But there must be better and foolproof stop-gap measures to meet the immediate needs of power through various means. The innovativeness being shown by way of distributing and redistributing ever-yawning gap between demand and supply of power can well also be applied for inventing or searching for newer techniques of generating power, even though it is at a smaller scale, to meet local needs. The efforts at developing smaller power generation units at local levels should be encouraged by the government. Such endeavours can be undertaken both at the public and the private sectors. Such dispersed approach to power production can reduce the people's over-dependency on a centralised power generation and distribution system. This can also help to dissipate peoples growing anger at the ever-worsening situation in the power production and distribution system in the country.
The government may encourage private operators to produce and distribute the power so generated among the limited number of consumers in a particular locality. However, the government would need to monitor the operation of such producers and distributors of power at smaller scales at the local levels. In this regard, the government may devise appropriate policies.
Meanwhile, a hundred and one techniques are available in the market for generating both renewable and non-renewable energy at smaller scales. Solar and wind power may be immediately harnessed to meet the local needs of the public. Apart from the devices to produce renewable energy, which are mostly imported from abroad, there are also the prospects of producing power from bio-gas and other such sources of similar nature. In each case, government support, in terms of access of the initiators of such projects to the institutional credit should be eased.
The Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which are extending their credit to various schemes in the countryside may also come forward to use local resources for generating power at smaller scales at the local levels.
To tap the locally available resources of power, the experience of the scientific research institutions of the country can also be utilised. Some such institutions of fundamental research existing in the country have practically no work to do. Highly qualified scientists working there are a frustrated lot as their capacities remain largely utilised. If they are properly encouraged, the scientists of our country may prove to be a source of inexhaustible knowledge and wisdom on offer for the nation. What is needed to make that happen is the adoption of correct policy by the government on this score.
The long and the short of it is that alongside managing the load from the system that generates and distributes power among the consumers, one has also to look at the decentralised production and distribution of power. This is not only a short-term measure to overcome the ongoing power crisis in the country. It can well contribute towards permanent solution to the problem.
When resources are scarce, people try to adjust to the situation through various innovative techniques. Whatever the method or how innovative it is, the bottom line is: use less of the resources available. But if the number of users of the resource in question increases in a progressive fashion day in, day out, then newer and more innovative methods would be necessary to adopt for far lesser of the resources. Now the fundamental question is how long can this red-herring be used to make people adjust to the scarcity? So, there must be a limit to such methods of tightening the belt and one has to draw the line somewhere.
The resource under consideration is power. This basic resource for modern life has been in short supply for long in Bangladesh. The situation has not improved over time, though the number of its users is increasing every year. So, those in charge of managing the distribution and supply of power to the consumers did devise the method of load-shedding during the peak hours of using electricity. But the use of this method of managing the scarcity has meanwhile been stretched to its limit. And as the production of power has not increased to keep pace with the demand, the load of and the demand for power has been getting wider and wider. So, the load-shedding too has become frequenter. At present the incidence of such load-shedding has lost its earlier pattern. All the differences between the peak hours and the non-peak hours have blurred. The consumers are getting more and more impatient. They have started to attack the offices where power is distributed from.
Such behaviour of the users going berserk over irregularity of power supply has struck terror among the workers in the power supply office. With the summer heat beating down more fiercely, people are also becoming more aggressive.
In the face of this growing crisis and the consumers' intolerance, the government is now thinking about introducing yet another exercise in learning to live with this unending crisis in the power production and distribution regime. The now new idea being thought about is Daylight Saving Time or in short, DST. This new technique was invented by the British and used first by the Germans in the early part of the last century. Then the practice crossed the Atlantic into the USA. The government of that country could not continue it due to protest from farmers. Though discontinued in the beginning, it was re-introduced in that country later on. The history of DST apart, the fact of the matter is that it is another way of asking the people to adjust to less power, though in a different manner. In the case of load-shedding, as it is the practice in Bangladesh, it comes from nowhere and take people by surprise. And as it is not a matter of fun, the consumers are naturally angry at its unexpected appearance.
In the case of the DST, it will be the people who will have to change their behaviour in order that the peak time of power use, which is around the shopping time in the evening, is dispersed. And if the people could be prevented from converging at a particular time of the day for shopping at the malls, then at least the use of evening power in the cities and bigger towns could be reduced by pulling the hour hand of the clock back by a few notches. But then what about the farmers or the students who start their work or study in the evening? What will happen to travel or international business communications done in the evening hours? For in the case of Western Europe, where the sun rises five to six hours later than in Bangladesh, there the peak business hours are when it is evening time here.
So there are both the brighter and the dimmer sides of this newer technique of power saving. Now the bigger question is will DST, if introduced, contribute towards saving any power at all in Bangladesh? For if there is really no surplus power left for saving, then that is not going to help matters in the long run, even if it is a very ingenious method of load management. With the passing of the days, people will get frustrated even with this new way of redistributing the scarcity of power over time without creating any new power.
The solution to crisis of power does not lie in these various cunning of delaying the ultimate to come.
True, the setting of a big power station and the setting up of distribution lines to carry the power to its various destinations far and near is a time-consuming affair. But there must be better and foolproof stop-gap measures to meet the immediate needs of power through various means. The innovativeness being shown by way of distributing and redistributing ever-yawning gap between demand and supply of power can well also be applied for inventing or searching for newer techniques of generating power, even though it is at a smaller scale, to meet local needs. The efforts at developing smaller power generation units at local levels should be encouraged by the government. Such endeavours can be undertaken both at the public and the private sectors. Such dispersed approach to power production can reduce the people's over-dependency on a centralised power generation and distribution system. This can also help to dissipate peoples growing anger at the ever-worsening situation in the power production and distribution system in the country.
The government may encourage private operators to produce and distribute the power so generated among the limited number of consumers in a particular locality. However, the government would need to monitor the operation of such producers and distributors of power at smaller scales at the local levels. In this regard, the government may devise appropriate policies.
Meanwhile, a hundred and one techniques are available in the market for generating both renewable and non-renewable energy at smaller scales. Solar and wind power may be immediately harnessed to meet the local needs of the public. Apart from the devices to produce renewable energy, which are mostly imported from abroad, there are also the prospects of producing power from bio-gas and other such sources of similar nature. In each case, government support, in terms of access of the initiators of such projects to the institutional credit should be eased.
The Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which are extending their credit to various schemes in the countryside may also come forward to use local resources for generating power at smaller scales at the local levels.
To tap the locally available resources of power, the experience of the scientific research institutions of the country can also be utilised. Some such institutions of fundamental research existing in the country have practically no work to do. Highly qualified scientists working there are a frustrated lot as their capacities remain largely utilised. If they are properly encouraged, the scientists of our country may prove to be a source of inexhaustible knowledge and wisdom on offer for the nation. What is needed to make that happen is the adoption of correct policy by the government on this score.
The long and the short of it is that alongside managing the load from the system that generates and distributes power among the consumers, one has also to look at the decentralised production and distribution of power. This is not only a short-term measure to overcome the ongoing power crisis in the country. It can well contribute towards permanent solution to the problem.