Power production below 25pc of capacity as winter chills demand

Electricity generation across Bangladesh has been reduced to less than one-fourth of the overall capacity as winter now chills the demand amid limited usages.
While the power-demand slump relieves nagging summer-time supply shortages, but the state will have to pay huge capacity charge against the unused plant capacities.
According to the state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), electricity generation during peak hours in the day on January 12 (Sunday) was 6,665 megawatts, only 24.17 per cent of the total installed capacity of 27,566MWs.

Power generation during peak hours on Sunday evening was 10,043MW, which was 36.43 per cent of the capacity.
A year ago on January 14, 2024, electricity generation during peak hours at daytime was higher, standing at 8,914MWs. Peak-hour generation on the evening that day was also higher, 10,286MWs, BPDB data showed.
Over the past one year since last winter, overall generation capacity, however, increased by 1,062MWs to 27,566MWs from the previous year's 26,504MWs, according to the power board.
Market-insiders say against the surplus generation capacity, BPDB would have to count "skyrocketing capacity payments to the idle power plants' owners as per deals".
Though power generation squeezed in winter, the country did not face load-shedding, according to BPDB data, signifying that productive activities in mills and fields didn't grow to outmatch the power output.
The data revealed gas-fired power plants contributed a major portion of electricity generation to the tune of 97.28 million kilowatt hours (mkwh), followed by coal-fired plants at 74.60mkwh, oil-based plants at 12.16mkwh, solar-fired plants at 3.10mkwh, and hydro and wind-fired plants at around 1.0mkwh.
A domino effect of the low power production is reflected in demand for natural gas that the country struggles to meet for neglecting exploration of potential domestic reserves, and has to rely on costly LNG imports.
A total of 42 gas-fired plants were kept shut on Sunday when Petrobangla supplied around 719 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of natural gas, only around 29.71 per cent of such gas-guzzling plants' overall demand for around 2,420mmcfd.
Sources have said domestic natural gas supply is on the wane amid continuous depletion of output and lax moves to ramp up extraction, resulting in less-than-expected supply of the fuel for power generation.
Bangladesh's overall natural gas production is currently hovering around 2,694mmcfd, including 755mmcfd as regasified liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to Petrobangla data on January 13.
Production from local gas fields, including those operated by international oil companies (IOCs), hovers around 1,939mmcfd.
"The country is facing a natural-gas crisis that is affecting all sorts of consumers, resulting in industrial output cuts and terrible suffering of commoners," says one of the insiders.
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